Modus Operandi
by Pereprin
Summary: Humanity's first and last defense faces an uncertain end as Shepard falters in the wake of Saren's destruction. When her resolve begins to shatter, Garrus learns to see what others can not within the woman who has sworn to save the galaxy.
1. Chapter 1

_**Author's Notes**__: HAI GUYS. Sup? I've been playing Mass Effect now for waaaay too long and needed some creative outlet. I haven't finished the game. Nope. But I am pissed that Garrus isn't a romantic option. So, to retaliate, he's going to be one here. Got it? Bioware can deal. That being said, the general gist of this is going to be FemShepard and Garrus, which I'm going to try to develop slowly because I'm slow… like a rock._

_You'll be seeing some flashbacks here. Some will be in-game events, others will be from what I'm imagining happened before all this jazz. Starting just before Artemis Tau. Spoilers to come in later chapters. You should be able to pick up on what kind of background I picked up, so I won't get into that. _

_Yeah. I'm not too hot at this stuff, so bear with me. I don't have a beta and I'm terrible at self-editing. These will actually come out regularly if there's interest and if someone can help me clean up my mess. Until then, here ya be._

_Rated M for language and what I intend to do with these poor SOB's later. YEH. I'M GOIN THAR._

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She had an entire galaxy at her fingertips. Albeit, she knew little of it from firsthand experience, but through the digital haze and virtual tours each command offered, it was as though she had explored them all. It was a privilege, she realized slowly, that many would kill for and few would achieve. This was Pressley's place once, back when she still had officers who stood above her command. But now, there was no one. This was the zenith with the world below her and the hundreds of systems with it. This was power… power she suddenly feared and yearned for all at once. It burned blue and hot, alluring amidst the darkness with the promise of warmth and the warning of pain. It was a new sensation, one she had tucked deep into the recesses of her mind along with the other memories and dilemmas she simply couldn't make priorities.

Among them lay the darker days of an uncertain future; of cooking flesh and searing pain, charred dreams and a past ripped to shreds. These were fuzzier, forced into obscurity though the years of systematic desensitizing. They may have been blurred, but never erased. Among them lay missions, botched, successes mingled together, the accomplishments certainly more appealing than the others. This subconscious had become a mess over time, but now existed as controlled chaos. She had a firm grip on these pieces of her past and thus knew the proper way to keep them all at bay. She would have been proud of such a coping skill, if she would simply call it coping. Years of telling herself time and time again, assuring her own inner voice that this was simply a work in progress had resulted in something like denial. She knew the bitter tang of failure better than most people and this mental mechanism had a similar taste.

But here, standing on the ramp before a sprawling sea of stars, she could reach out and touch so much more, more than her petty reservations and scars, mental and physical. Before her lay infinity.

And she couldn't even bring herself to set the course. She stood, arm outstretched, but motionless. Her eyes wouldn't focus.

"Commander Shepard?" Pressley spoke up from the console at the base of the map, brow raised in question. "Do we have a destination?"

The commander hesitated, the palm of her hand hovering over the Artemis Tau Cluster. Pale green eyes pierced through it, straight to the Knossos sector. They shifted from planet to planet quickly, giving little time to consider their individual attributes. She'd know it when she saw it. A heartbeat later, she did. Her fingers deftly slid across the cluster and brought the fiery planet to life.

"Set a course for Therum. We're going planetside as soon as we enter the atmosphere," Shepard announced aloud, earning curious glances from nearby crew who all seemed to find something of interest in her tone of command.

It was unconscious, truly, but she always spoke with the same depth and certainty. There was power in her words that few other women of her age would ever know. Sometimes, it seemed foreign to her. It was a sound hardly befitting the woman behind the gaze of ice.

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_"You have a remarkably poor combat record with no history of any military leadership. No commendations, never once a squad leader. None of your commanding officers have ever found you memorable, nor have you ever exhibited proper combat tactics in accordance to Alliance Navy basic training. Inability to execute evasive maneuvers… Have you ever _not_ been shot in battle? This track record makes you out to be little more than human target practice, not to mention your psychological profile is a mess… So tell me, ensign; why do you seem to think you're a candidate for reassignment on one of our more promising colonies? Is this your idea of a joke? Because I've never been known for my sense of humor. In fact, I'd say I downright hate it."_

_Lieutenant Commander Harris closed the com file quickly and leaned forward, folding his hands atop his desk. "I feel like I deserve an explanation in exchange for you wasting my time."_

_Ren Shepard hadn't really expected much better, but the manner of the response had her straining to maintain composure. That tiny muscle between eyelid and brow twitched, subtlety she hoped, but briefly. The makeshift office was stifling, thanks to Harris' unshakable need to keep all of his weapons and personal belongings in this space rather than the lockers provided for CO's as well as recruits. His graying hair conveyed this appearance of aged wisdom and experience, but Harris in person was little more than an impatient, bigoted man who had pulled just the right strings to bring him to a comfortable position of command. Unfortunately, he rarely failed a mission and thus remained secure in that position. Damn her luck._

_"Sir, I meant no offense. I simply don't think I'm an asset to this garrison here and I feel like everyone would be better off if I was stationed on another colony", Shepard spoke calmly, much to her surprise. She was sure some quiver of annoyance would slip through the cracks and make for a volatile conversation. _

_Harris leaned back in his chair and laughed mockingly, "Better off? Shepard, the only reason you're still here is because I've got a duty to keep you from ruining someone else's shit," Harris coughed through a smirk, "You're to remain here, safely tucked away from civilized society". _

_Shepard rolled her eyes and made no effort to hide it from Harris, who promptly growled, "You think I don't know we're wasting our time out here on this damn rock? We're babysitters for party after party of deadbeat miners. Oh, no one knows that better than me. But you know what, Shepard? You're pretty damn lucky out here. You could be roughing it out on Sidon right now, getting mauled by whatever abomination they're cooking up over there. But no, you're here, resident pain-in-my-ass. Safe and out of the way where no one will end up dead when you fuck up."_

_Her patience was waning, and fast. She snapped back, unable to curb the edge in her voice, "Then put me on a frigate, a carrier, whatever. I don't need to be stationed on a system, just put me where-"_

_"No, Shepard. You need to be far away from anyone less merciful than myself, because you'd be out on your ass faster than you can say 'krogan balls'," he spat, busying himself with another com file._

_"I don't care, Lieutenant, just get me into space. Any vessel. There's got to be something out there…" she trailed off, cursing herself for not having some kind of trump card, something to seal a deal._

_Harris took advantage of her thought lapse," Lieutenant Commander, Shepard. You think I fought in the First Contact to be anything less? I killed enough bark-faced freaks to be a damn captain. You forget you place out-" _

_"I show respect where it's due, sir," she spat back before she could fully process her choice of words._

_The officer went quiet, forgetting the open file entirely as his cold brown eyes glared daggers at her. There was a pregnant pause as she braced herself for whatever verbal onslaught he had prepared. Nothing good could come of this and there were few avenues leading towards a brighter future. Shepard expected a slew of punishments; all-night inspection duty, a week in the mess. The possibilities seemed endless. _

_"You just don't have it in you, do you?" Harris spoke first, unusually flat considering the prior outburst. "You could have tried bribery, blackmail… hell, flattery to achieve your ends. But no, you're too stubborn, aren't you? Just had to bust by chops and work us both into this becoming state, here."_

_He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, as though it would some how relieve the pressure building there. "Get out of here, Shepard. Come back if you ever get a better head on those shoulders. I won't hold my breath though."_

_The next thing she knew, she was standing outside Harris' office, the door hissing shut behind her. She hadn't expected that. No, hardly. It stunned her into obedience and compelled her to just up and exit. It left her thoughtful, though. Perturbed, mostly._

_"You'd think you didn't really want it, Shepard," came a familiar voice. She looked up to see the youthful face of one of the few recruits she called "friend" here. _

_"How'd you hear all that, McDowell?" she asked with genuine curiosity. Harris was pretty big on privacy. She had figured eavesdropping wouldn't be common within a five yard radius of the man. _

_McDowell shrugged, a grin ghosted across his face. Shepard wasn't even sure she had seen it once it had gone. He gestured to the door. "Just didn't cover my ears. You'd think you two were intent on broadcasting it through the whole camp."_

_"Oh… sorry," she admitted, suddenly embarrassed. It was one thing to know her own failures intimately, but they seemed all the more detrimental the more people got wind of them. McDowell especially held a certain place of reverence in her opinion of things. She had been deployed with him several times and he knew just as well as anyone how poorly she functioned under fire. Still, he continued to speak with her on a casual level and treated her with just as much dignity as a functioning member of the squad. The friendship had become increasingly valuable to her as, one by one, others refused to even make eye contact with her._

_"Look, I know you hate it here. Join the club… but if you want to do anything about you, you need to commit. I mean, you let Harris get his way because you just didn't do things right. He had a point, you know. If you wanted out of here, you'd work with him," he suggested mildly. It was probably the most frank anyone had even been to her since her assignment here and the words didn't land lightly._

_"I just… I couldn't stand to meet him on his own level, you know? But I don't know what else to do. I have to leave, McDowell. I don't know how much longer I'll last here. It's just… I can't explain," _

_'Can't explain how I spend every night trapped in a nightmare. I see the dead when I close my eyes. I see the dead in your face, in every man and woman who holds up a gun beside me. I want to bury myself in the ground, I want to rip off my skin and run as fast as I can, all at the same time. How about that, McDowell? Now do you want to be best friends?'_

_"I can help you out, here. If you'll let me… if you can find the motivation, I can help you find the skill," his face grew serious._

_"Help? What do you mean?" Shepard looked puzzled._

_"Oh, come on. You get out there and it's like you slept through basic or something. You need to go back to square one."_

_"Ah", Shepard muttered, pushing some loose strands of jet hair from her brow. Yes, it was true. She was a wreck during combat. McDowell had the right idea, though. She had enlisted almost immediately after Mindoir and carried on in a less-than-steady state of mind. Her memories of training were muddled at best. How she managed to get through it and wind up in an active garrison were beyond her. Apparently, it was just as perplexing to the rest of the 130__th__ division. _

_"I'm offering you a way out of here, Shepard. Weapons training, combat maneuvers, offensive tactics… Nothing extraordinary, but enough to get you up and out of the bottom of the barrel. When your reports start working in your favor, you'll have a ticket out of here," This was perhaps the most McDowell had ever spoken to her in one sitting and it was welcome at that. It'd been too long since her last remotely normal conversation Many years too long. _

_"How long do you think it'll take until I stop looking like a clown out there?" Shepard tried to crack a smile back at him, but her lips were unaccustomed to the movement and managed some kind of awkward grimace that she cursed herself for._

_"Months. Maybe a year. It depends on how far back we're going to go," he added lightly._

_Shepard balked, "Months? Are you serious?"_

_McDowell straightened up, stern gaze fixed on her, "If we're going to do this, we're going to do it right. If I'm going to get you off this rock, you've got to be able to hold your own once it's out from under you." _

_Her heart nearly fell into her stomach as that brief thought of immediate freedom dissolved into years of strenuous training. She had to remind herself of his generosity and the curiosity of it. The more she mulled over it, the more appealing it became, until she realized that was, in fact, her only ticket out. _

_She had made up her mind, but she had to ask, "Why help me, McDowell? You don't owe me anything and you never struck me as a humanitarian… Or is it the other way around?"_

_He laughed heartily and the sound of it made something inside her flutter. It was an alien sensation, but not unnerving. Like seeing an old friend after years of silence. _

_"All I ask, Shepard, is that after you've gone out there and made something of yourself, you remember me. Put in a good word for me at C-Sec. Not sure I'll ever see it, but I can dream, right? But I want your word on this," his smiled never wavered, even though he must have known as well as she did that soldiers on systems like this did little more than disappear into anonymity._

_"Why me? You're ten times the soldier I am. Get yourself out of here, first," she sorely needed out, but knew there had to be more than this. She couldn't take complete advantage of the opportunity without knowing the real story._

_McDowell's expression wavered, giving Shepard a startling glimpse into a face worn and tired. It couldn't have been the same man she had just spoken to, the man with the laugh that made her feel like she might truly smile again one day. "I've earned this, Shepard. I am where I am because the path I created for myself led me here. I have no intention of leaving. But you, Shepard… maybe it's not about skill or talent, but I know you've got something there. I know there's more to you. I've seen it. You've been shot more times than I can count on my fingers, but time and time again, you come back here. You get right back up and go out there with the rest of us. All this time, this look in your face… It's like you could just curl up on the floor and die, like you really want it. But you don't. I see'm kill you out there, Shepard. But you don't die," McDowell stopped, a look of slight surprise flickering over his features._

_Shepard felt like someone had run ice cold fingers down her back and left a pound of lead in her stomach. She did, at that moment, yearn dearly for a place to curl up in the darkness, but McDowell's smile came back._

_"To me, it's a flashing sign telling me that there's way more to you than this gangly girl I see right now. I wouldn't mind helping the Alliance in finding a soldier they can really be proud of. Hell, especially if it means putting Harris out of a job," he cast a sideways glance at the nameplate beside the door panel._

_"I'm in. When do we start?" Shepard replied firmly._

_McDowell nodded, "Tonight after rounds. Suit up and meet me at the checkpoint just before the pass. There's a clearing back there that used to be a Mako drop point, but… well, the rest of the navy doesn't visit too much anymore." _

_"You've got clearance to leave the barracks after curfew?" Shepard stared, incredulous._

_"Nope. I'm pretty sure you don't either, so let's not get caught. This will not be fun and you're probably going to be in some fierce kind of pain for a good long while, but trust me, Shepard. You need every second of it and it _will_ be worth it."_

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Shepard turned down the ramp, reflexively heading towards Joker for comfortable, if not bland conversation. Most of the crew continued to treat her as they did before, but there was this air of uncertainty about them since her admission into the Spectres. Joker remained the most irreverent of them all and rarely acknowledge any change in her position.

She had heard mutterings in the mess of doubts among the crew. Word came through the grapevine about worries regarding her loyalties. Some wondered if she would waver in her dedication to the Alliance and shift towards the council. While most regarded the galactic board as a respectable means to maintain peace, humans still maintained their suspicions. No one could ignore humanity's struggle to attain respect among the other galactic civilizations, much less its plight to earn a seat on the council. Most humans were wary of these other races, even after all the strides to be heard in these galactic proceedings. At any moment, the council could reject the species entirely and turn all other life in the traverse against them. It was a precarious position that was so unfamiliar to this once sovereign race that had only known itself… and even proclaimed themselves to be the only life in the galaxy. Their arrogance had proved destructive in the First Contact war and many sang a different tune these days.

Humanity had stumbled upon something far bigger than itself and had been effectively humbled. Everyone from then on knew some sort of few. All at once, the species fell to the bottom of the food chain and nothing would be the same. Efforts were made, success aplenty, but the prejudices remained: fear and hatred of the turians, suspicion of salarians and mistrust towards asari.

The paradigm had shifted and few could keep up to move along with it. They were forced into the future and stared forward, fighting to make sense of this new existence.

Shepard couldn't demand trust from them anymore. She had to earn it now. She had two worlds to appease and both held their own authority over her life. The Alliance was all that a home should have been for her. It was the past and the comfort of familiarity. The Citadel and Council were the future, a change in life and promise of something different ahead, while not necessarily better.

The irony of it never ceased to plague her.

She made for the aft of the bridge instead, settling for solitude.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note**: When I say slow, I MEAN slow. You guys are going to have to deal with my backstory for a little longer because it's going to make sense, damn it. I SWEARS.

For those of you who bothered to review, you have a special place in my heart. For those of you who needed some Garrus like, RIGHT NOW… well, he's there.

I am totally getting sick and it's been making creative thoughts hard. They do battle with the gunk in my brain.

This one is also riddled with errors. You've been warned. Avast. Yes. Bioware owns them. I just obsess over them. Review plz!

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"Ten minutes until drop, Commander. Hope you like it hot," Joker's voice buzzed through the intercom, drawing a disgruntled Shepard from her reverie. She opened her mouth to reproach him, but found nothing appropriate in her tiny inventory of witty remarks.

Sleep would have been ideal, but she rarely achieved such peace, even during long bouts of downtime. She had spent the last few hours staring straight ahead in the dimness, arms folded across her chest. It had been a time for thought. She mulled over their objective, mixing and matching squad possibilities in her head with varying degrees of interest. There was little need to deliberate. She knew her comfort levels well enough by now with the crew below her. The others had forged another kind of understanding with her, though tentative at times. There was a mutual trust between the alien comrades that gave the rest of the Alliance crew reason enough to wonder the how and why.

Irrelevant to her, though. Tali had proven to be committed to a higher cause, which included protecting the SR1 Normandy that now housed her. Her dedication to the migrant fleet was unshakable and Shepard was certain the girl would not do anything to endanger them or the outcome of her pilgrimage. Their krogan ally certainly rubbed most the wrong way and Wrex knew it well. She could see the antagonistic side of him loved it and even searched for that spark of fear, hoping to start something with some of the more jittery engineers. Lately, however, he was keeping to himself down in the loading bay. Shepard took it as a sign that he'd gotten his kicks and now meant business. Or so she assumed. She was just as learned in the ways of krogan psychology as any other average Joe. Considering her experience with the race, she figured she was making heads or tales of them alright. Wrex and she had found their understanding in a common goal back on the Citadel and Shepard hadn't questioned it since. He was crass at times and prone to outbursts of violence. Over time, these explosions of force seemed more calculated and precise than Shepard had originally thought. His actions never endangered their ground team. They had simply unnerved them, as did most things on these foreign planets.

Garrus, however, had not assimilated so smoothly. It didn't help that the other officers were wary of the turian, C-Sec or not. Remnants of the First Contact War were hard to shake.

Shepard had never fraternized much with others of her own rank and never participated in any act of discrimination. She'd have been stupid not to harbor some kind of hesitation. The history was there, regardless. She simply didn't find the racial slurs or blatant acts of hatred as the proper outlets for this fear. In conversation with them, she was guarded at most and unwilling to bend to demands. This led to a neutral reputation between her and the species, but little more.

These past few months, however, had made maintaining this cold indifference difficult. By the time Nihlus had come aboard, she was ready to let bygones be and make whatever sacrifice necessary to get the job done. However, in the presence of the Captain, she feared to lose herself. It simply wasn't proper to be cordial to turians, especially as a high ranking officer in the Alliance Navy.

These days, she wished she had thrown caution to the wind. They were far beyond racial taboo now and Nihlus' death made it all seem so petty. She would never verbalize it, but Shepard couldn't shake this wrench of sadness that struck her every time she thought back to the mission on Eden Prime. Seeing his body sprawled below her, she couldn't regard him as a turian, but a fellow soldier shamefully betrayed by a monster he once considered a friend. At one point, she thought to go to Garrus about it and ask if he had ever known Nihlus on any level, but that scenario seemed absurd in her head. The C-Sec officer wasn't huge on conversation. Shepard had that much in common with him. When they did speak to one another, their words seemed to get lost in translation. It was simply one of those racial differences that drove wedges between them all. As a marine, she could relate to his code of honor and discipline. Shepard had been bothered by this grief more than she liked to let on, but hid the discomfort well, or so she believed.

The door slid open as she took her leave, heading for her locker before descending into the loading bay. Once properly outfitted, she made her way towards the elevator and prepared herself for an unnecessarily long ride down a single floor. At least it offered some precious alone time.

Except this time around, the lift opened to reveal their turian ally standing alert in the corner. "Wrong way, Garrus," she remarked flatly.

But the C-Sec agent stood at attention, if not a little antsy from where she was standing, and replied quickly, "I'm aware, Commander. I was actually hoping to catch you before the briefing."

Shepard couldn't fathom how Garrus thought this an appropriate time for some one on one, but she entered the elevator and stood center anyway, braced for whatever issues he had come to vent. "You have until these doors open, Vakarian. What can I do for you?"

"I'd like to be apart of this shore team, ma'am. That's all," came his quick answer. She had to hand it to him, for someone so stuck in regulations and protocols, he knew how to keep things brief and to the point. She was starting to understand his insistence on leaving the Citadel. There was more of a warrior about him than cop.

"What makes you think I ought to give you priority over the rest of my squad, Vakarian?" It came out harsh and unreasonable, much to her displeasure. No, she hadn't meant to sound like that. Call it reflex, call it habit, but she often spoke these days before truly considering consequence. She had begun to rely too much on gut, she realized. It hadn't failed her in the past. In fact, it had saved her countless times, but in combat. Not in casual conversation. In that department, she was sorely untrained.

"I thought I had proven myself apt in the Citadel, Commander. Excuse me if I'm mistaken, but… Well, I believe want to see these for myself. The geth, I mean," Garrus continued as the elevator inched down the shaft at a painfully slow pace.

Shepard wondered what exactly caused such advanced technology to fail so miserably in such a blatant way. "Don't understand what your rush, is. We're going to be dealing with a lot more geth if things keep up. You'll get your shot."

Garrus wasn't having any. He picked immediately after her, "But I'm already behind as it is. There's no training for anything like this on the Citadel and I've got a long ways to go if I'm to stand a fighting chance. Shepard, you've exposed the rest of your crew to these synthetics and they have their tactics dialed in-"

"Fine. You're onboard. But don't make a habit of demanding favors from me, alright? You get your way, then everybody else has to get there way," Shepard relinquished with an edge of warning. This was a battle that simply didn't seem worth fighting. Garrus had done his part on the Citadel and his hatred toward Saren gave him an effective passion for their plight. Typically, fervor or excessive emotions spelled disaster for a squad, especially when these feelings exploded into rash decisions leading to casualties. There was a sense of control about Garrus' motivation that made Shepard atypically confident in his reliability, though he had given her plenty of reasons to make her retract the trust.

This righteousness could easily transcend into fanaticism, given the right catalyst. Yes, the race as a whole exercised great restraint, but there was a spark of raw need in his words when he spoke of investigations gone awry or a failure to apprehend a suspect.

He was also itching to lodge a bullet in Saren's brain, which Shepard figured balanced both sides out. For now.

She didn't share her logic with Garrus, though, and left him slightly taken aback, but he recovered, pleased. "Understood, Commander. My thanks."

The door hissed open, and not a moment too soon.

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_"Turians are bad news, Gomez. I mean, _bad_ news. They'll snap you in half if you so much as look at'm wrong. Like being trapped naked in a ditch with an angry lion. Nothing good can come of it. You're lucky if you escape with your dick attached," the ensign proclaimed loudly over the din of the mess hall, between bites of Alliance-regulation rations._

_ Low profile outfits like theirs rarely received much in the way of gourmet cooking. It was all standard, amino, protein-heavy mashes of some viscous substance. It tasted like chicken, or so they were told. Few had ever had the stuff and couldn't rely refute it on account of false advertising. Still, it was palatable after a few weeks. Shepard preferred straight up nutrient bars when she could scavange them._

_"So you meet a turian and one of two things could happen, yeah? You stop movin' forever, or say bye- bye to your junk? Tough choice, Stevens," the dark-skinned man laughed, finding ample amounts of humor in the prospect of becoming limp and sterile. _

_"I'm serious, man. You ever seen one before? I mean, face to face? It's no wonder we tried to take'm out way back when. I would have shot anything that ugly comin' towards me in deep space. What about you, Lieutenant? Ever fought one of those things?" Stevens pointed with his spoon to the woman sitting across from him._

_Shepard balked, already bogged down trying to get the image of dismembered genitalia out of her head. "No. I don't really know anyone who has these days. War's over, remember? I saw one. Once," she said mildly, helping herself to a large glass of water. _

_Gomez and Stevens weren't the most eloquent of men, but they never ceased to include Shepard in their conversation, which she couldn't fault them for. Some still avoided her like a plague, but the general attitude towards her had changed for the better. Word of her improvements spread quickly, but not all believed everything that passed through gossip-hungry mouths. The truth was that Shepard had become one of the more capable soldiers in the garrison with a brand new record, reflecting numerous successes on some of the simpler scouting missions. Once she was assigned to a more active squad, she proved herself quickly by saving three marines during a surprise raid out past the third ridge, several kilometers away from any civilization. Gomez was one of those three who witnessed Shepard take out four krogan mercenaries with a wounded right leg. Once she had neutralized the immediate threat, she managed to disable the homing beacon and overrode their dropship computer, setting a new course for the party still outside the atmosphere. Mere hours later, the mothership followed the new coordinates directly into an Alliance fleet stationed in the Gagarin system. Word was relayed back to the 130__th__ that the mercenary vessel had been successfully intercepted by the 3__rd__ fleet and had been effectively silenced._

_The other two figured the counter attack had been a hallucination, the result of some shock, but Gomez attested to the same feats and believed everything he claimed he saw. Harris had a hard time swallowing the news, but once all three witnesses attested to her skill, there were no grounds for denial. Afterward, Shepard was promoted to Junior Lieutenant and Lieutenant a few weeks later. Since then, she had been leading higher risk scouting parties deeper into the mountains, surveying the terrain for possible building sites. The navy had taken a decided interest in expanding its colonial efforts and had deemed their system appropriate for expansion. Few could understand why. It was a desolate land with little flora and even less fauna. The first research team to survey the planet could only find two or three kinds of omnivorous mammal life, none of which grew larger than a Labrador. There was a lanky, scaled creature that frequented the outskirts of the camp. Scientists, in their typical creative manner, had dubbed them "rooters", on account of their constant digging and nosing of the rough terrain with their pointed muzzles. They were cloven-hoofed things that occasionally wandered through camp at night, but never did anyone harm. Some idle soldiers had taken up target shooting with them, but the creatures learned fast. Few meandered anywhere in sight during the daylight. To do so meant certain death._

_These harmless creatures were hardly worthy of tableside conversation. Gomez and Stevens weren't very creative when it came to discussion topics, so there were usually repeats like tonight's turian debate, if it could be called that. Most of the time, comments were ignorant and ridiculously absurd, but Shepard could usually get by with the occasional noncommittal remark to satisfy them._

_Stevens seemed to be hoping for more, but she knew he liked the sound of his own voice too much for him to wait for her to expand the point. He returned his attention to Stevens, who took the bait all too well, "I believe what they're saying out there. These things are ruthless and fight like they were made for nothing else."_

_Gomez nodded in concurrence, "Doesn't it rub you the wrong way? The idea of a whole species like that bent totally towards war?"_

_Shepard snorted, earning surprised attention from her comrades. She cleared her throat in a futile attempt to cover up her burst of humor, "Turians? Seriously? You sure we're not talking about krogans?"_

_Stevens wasn't having any of it. He retorted, "I'd be pissed all the time too if my race was being systematically exterminated, but the turians? That's just their nature."_

_Shepard had a few counter points of her own and would have said them aloud if she figured they'd not fall on deaf ears. There was the issue with krogan hostility tracing back long before the genophage… but humanity always seemed to have this pet fondness for the underdog, especially when rebellion was concerned. Freedom, liberty; the words held just as much value to her own species as she figured honor and discipline meant to any other turian. She considered these valid points, but kept them to herself. The last thing she wanted was to start a squabble with one of the three people on this forsaken system that she could call "friend". Besides, most of her arguments usually ended with her spouting hotheaded character attacks with expletives she had begun to pick up throughout the camp. Some combinations had struck a few ensigns speechless from their crudeness. This sometimes led to bleeding that never wound up on official records._

_"Whatever you say, Gomez. Can't argue with our resident xenobiologist," she sighed, letting the sarcasm leak through her words as she stood up, thoroughly convinced that dinner really couldn't get any better. _

_Stevens helped himself to the meal Shepard left untouched, resisting the reflex to rise in the presence of a commanding officer. Shepard hadn't made an effort to distinguish herself differently from the other two. Gomez had resisted this lack of formality for a while, but had enough respect for the Lieutenant to grant her the request. Stevens was still working on it, having long-since assimilated into the military life. Processing this breach of protocol had taken a while, but Shepard has put his fears to rest when she had made it perfectly clear that she knew the respect was there. It wasn't necessary to demonstrate it all the time. At least as a low-ranking officer. _

_It may have been partially due to the fact that she didn't really believe any respect was due and thus didn't call for it, despite what she had told the others._

_"You off already, Lieutenant?" Stevens asked, quickly finishing her plate. In return for receiving her most of her meals, Stevens supplied Shepard with whatever spare tools he could barter from the passing miners. Stevens was good at feigning interest in the surveyors that came through during some of their escort runs through the ridge. He always managed to come back with some spare panels or electrical units that Shepard sorely needed. The exchange involved no questions, but there was nothing illegal in the practice. Shepard simply hoarded the odds and ends, tinkering with them into the night as she struggled to expand her knowledge of the technical aspect of things._

_"Rounds are over, I've stomached as much of this slop as possible and I've enjoyed some enlightening conversation… so yes, I believe I'm done for the day. Carry on," she offered her customary nod of farewell and left the mess, making a beeline for her quarters to collect her gear._

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She secured the last two grenades within her bandolier, shouting over the noise of the fierce winds buffeting the hull.

"As soon as we're deployed, we head straight through this pass here," Shepard pointed to the narrow land bridge on her digital ground scan. "It's a narrow bit of land, but we've got to stay as far away from these lava flows as possible. Once we breach this first line of defense, we should be clear up until we reach the excavation site. After that, it's all guess work. We don't know how long Saren's had to prepare for us, but mark my words; he sure as hell knows we're coming."

The dig site flashed yellow before being encircled on the map. She closed the program, committing the data to her own suit's navigational system as well as the Mako's onboard panel. With their target set and the rest of the crew standing at attention before her, they strained to catch whatever words of warning or encouragement she had to offer.

"Therum is riddled with subterranean volcanoes and caverns, so pay close attention to any shifts or tremors. You speak up about even the slightest thing and it might just save our asses from a very painful end. Understood?"

She waited for the nods, understanding the futility of a verbal affirmation so close to the drop zone, "Good. Williams and Vakarian, you're coming ashore. The rest of you will keep to your stations in case we need an airlift out of there."

Alenko looked taken aback for a moment and Shepard had no doubts as to why. She'd kept him handy on the last four or five distress calls and he seemed to resent change. However, Kaiden was more of a marine than he liked to let on. It didn't take long for Shepard to see the cracks in the stoic exterior and find the conflicted man inside. Still, he hid his displeasure, much to Shepard's relief.

Garrus, however, appeared utterly indifferent, taking up his rifle immediately as he filed into the Mako behind Williams. Shepard hadn't expected an elaborate thank you or pat on the back, but there was a nagging voice chirping in the back of her mind that wouldn't go away. She stifled it as best she could and continued over the communication link, "Sixty seconds, Joker."

She was the last inside the cramped tank, last to seal the door, last to give commands as the rest of the squad filed out of the hold, none too eager to experience the atmosphere.

"Approaching drop zone, Commander. You're good to go," Joker buzzed back as the bay doors roared open.

And down they went.


	3. Chapter 3

_**Author's Note:**__ Well, I think I healed. I pulled an ME all-nighter the other day and thoroughly 'effed up my internal clock. Think I got it figured out._

_This is THE longest chapter yet. I meant to keep going with some Garrus, but decided to save it for next time. Got to give you kids a reason to come back. Otherwise, I feel like a loozar. .._

_You'll also notice that I changed the rating to T. I realized that there's nothing other than coarse language right now, so I figured 'Hey, why deal with the filters? Let's cheat'. So, here I am, fighting to get some more readers._

_;; I'm scum. Yes._

_I have dual custody over Shepard with Bioware. WOO. Reviews puh-leeeeease? Criticism appreciated._

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"For state of the art, you'd think this thing would have better ventilation", Williams muttered from her turret station, leaning back to remove her helmet with some difficulty. They were all packed tightly together, far beyond the realm of comfort. The gunnery chief was clearly uneasy in the position, seeing how she was in constant danger of brushing up against Garrus. Whenever they took a sharp turn or drove through a ridge head on, Shepard could practically hear Williams seethe. The woman kept her wits about her, despite the revealing signs of rising rage. Vakarian was all too aware of Williams' dislike for the species and he stuck like adhesive to his place at the central cannon. Shepard found some amusement in this during their first few shore parties, but the novelty had worn off and it was now like she had inherited two awkward teenagers.

"Don't get too comfortable. We're coming up on the first turn," Shepard called back, certain Williams hadn't expected to be overheard. It was hard to keep secrets in such a small enclosure, despite the vehicle's noise level.

"Yes ma'am. Sorry," Williams called back, reaching to replace her helmet. Shepard felt a smirk creeping across her lips, but it was short-lived.

"Don't apologize for stating a fact," Shepard cast a sideways glance, catching the marine out of the corner of her eye while managing to still keep some attention on the terrain ahead. "It's hotter than hell in here."

Garrus shifted, metal grating upon metal as his holster scraped against the interior of the rover. Shepard could have sworn she heard him hiss a curse, but he didn't dwell on it and called back to no one in particular, "I'd just like to point out that whatever space issues you have with this thing should be taken up with your own engineers, not the turians. We would never sacrifice leg room."

His voice had this uncanny ability to reverberate at the oddest of times. This wasn't limited to Garrus, but was something she had noticed about the race as a whole. She knew that human and turian internal biology was strikingly similar, aside from the digestive and blood differences or bone structure… but there was an element to their speech that hinted to multiple pairs of vocal chords working at the same time. This left a reverberating effect that gave their spoken language more of a texture, if one could think of it in that sense.

"The Normandy was supposed to be a joint effort by humans and turians, right? So shouldn't your side be taking half the blame?" Ashley barked back, decidedly more aggressive than Shepard expected.

Garrus shook his head and sighed as he repositioned himself at the canon station, "I meant no offense, Williams. Call it a bad attempt at a joke." He sighed, leaving Williams mildly flabbergasted.

She balked, then grunted, "I can never tell with you people."

While Shepard approved of inter-squad conversations and a certain level of casual discourse, she found that each new diverse addition to the team had some insatiable desire to strike up informal dialogue between one another. In this case, the words exchanged did little to strengthen bonds or improve interracial relations, but rather served to lighten the mood. This was fine back in the mess or down in the engine room, but not during shake-down runs or drop missions, and certainly not high-risk infiltration operations that may or may not involve a shitstorm of geth barreling.

"Put this conversation on pause, alright? I need you two to stay focused," Shepard called back, eyes locked on the horizon line for any sign of interception. She was trying to exercise extreme caution, light on the accelerator pedal and heavy on the steering. The natural terrain forced her to veer awfully close to the magma pits on both sides of her, making for an uncomfortably tedious drive.

Perhaps cut shorter than she expected.

A dark shadow descended upon them, bringing with it the promise of fierce resistance. Shepard clutched the wheel tight, jaw clenching in anticipation, "We've been spotted. Hold on."

She watched as three dark masses fell from the cruiser as it departed, leaving behind massive, unfolding works of artificial malice. A bright yellow light suddenly came hurtling towards the front window. Shepard's eyes widened as she turned as hard as she could away from the blast, the Mako screeching as it swerved on one set of wheels.

The rocket and rover connected, sending the vehicle backwards, rolling. Shepard maintained her death grip on the wheel as the shield monitor screamed with the rest of the hull sensors, breaches popping up everywhere. They were upside down, right side up, backwards and forwards as they tumbled. She was jerked every which way until her hold faltered and she flew to the rear of the vehicle, scrambling about with the rest of her crew. They screeched to a halt, the Mako having landed firmly sideways. It took a moment for the high-pitched whine to fade from Shepard's ears, leaving her disoriented at the most inopportune time.

She could make out Williams across from her, flat on her stomach and groping for her helmet and shotgun at the same time. A quick sideways glance and she found Garrus, currently supporting her weight. There was little time for surprise, had she even been capable of it, though Garrus appeared to be experience some serious discomfort.

He strained to sit up, long-fingered hand hesitating to make any contact with her, despite the fact that she was already using him as a living cushioning device. She found it ironic for a fraction of a second.

"Commander… Are you alright?!" he shouted over the second rocket blast, which screamed as it narrowly missed the hull.

The sound of heavy artillery flying towards them snapped her out of the confusion and she sprung off him, turning to get him up. She didn't wait for him to reach for her, but simply grabbed the already outstretched hand in a vain attempt to haul his entire weight. He appeared surprised by her quick recovery, but she left him little time to wonder. "Get to the hatch! Take cover on the other side of the Mako! Use it as a barricade!"

He nodded, talons enclosing round her hand as he used the other push himself up, meeting her halfway in the effort. Williams was already upright by the time Shepard had issued the order and was now throwing the door open. Garrus followed her out the hatch, rifle at the ready as he disappeared from sight, leaving Shepard to follow suit.

She landed with a thud on the rear end of the rover, feet away from Williams, who was firing round after round at the four-legged synthetics. Shepard crouched low against the undercarriage, arming her pistol before taking position. Her head swiveled, looking to find their third. Garrus had positioned himself precariously at the top of the Mako, arming the sniper swiftly and aiming all in the same fluid motion. He had his first shot off before Shepard could even lock on target.

She took her position at the rear of the car, opposite Williams. She peered out, getting off a few successful clips before retreating once again. The armatures were steadily advancing, but the most immediate threat did not appear to be the four-legged machines.

It was the rocket trooper at the rear firing directly at them.

There were mere seconds to act and none to spare. She covered the distance, dragging Williams to the ground before she could protest. Shepard leapt the breadth of the Mako and tackled Garrus, pulling him down and clutching to him as a very literal version of a human shield. She could feel him struggling to get up from under her and stupidly wondered why it felt so familiar. To her horror, she saw Williams rise and prepare to mount her rifle once more. But Shepard saw the look of dawning terror through Williams' visor as the gunnery chief saw the reason for their retreat, the light of it illuminating her face.

The heat of the rocket was fast approaching and Shepard screamed to be heard over it, "Get down! Get _down!"_

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_"Get down! Now, stay down. No, you don't move until you've checked your angles. Charge ahead and you risk a potentially humiliating attack from rear," McDowell crackled into her helmet, calm and correcting._

_Shepard spat out a wad of mud, grimacing. The force of the dive had her literally eating dirt, face down in a deep depression. Behind her, the sentry drone crackled pitifully on the ground where Shepard had left it riddled with holes. She craned her head around to survey her handiwork. After her assault, the machine had been reduced to nothing more than a steaming pile of scrap. Shepard propped herself up on her elbows, pushing her torso just enough to give her a better view of the slope ahead._

_"It won't be kicking my ass anytime soon," she replied smugly into the receiver._

_All was a quiet for a moment until McDowell finally answered, "No. But the one behind it will."_

_The flood of gunfire had her cursing as she barrel- rolled sideways, squinting through the explosions of earth as bullets connected with ground, mere centimeters from her head. She was pushing her luck with every turn. Gripping her rifle, she dug her heel into the ground and lay flat on her back, letting round after round fly into what she hoped was dead center of the drone._

_It squealed in mechanical protest as one of its thrusters came loose and fell in a graceless heap. The rest of the thing followed, smoldering and hissing as the cooling fluid spilled out from under it. Shepard leapt to her feet, gun trained on the downed sentry and poised to fire immediately. It twitched, sputtered, and died in short order. She turned on her heel and slid down the slope, gripping the standard-issue assault rifle with newfound appreciation. _

_"That was too damn close. Any reason you didn't tell me about that sooner?" Shepard asked sourly, effectively humbled. Hell if she'd ever admit it._

_Her eyes darted from rise to rise, taking in as much of her surroundings as humanly possible. She checked each potential point of attack and double checked the blind spots as McDowell spoke directly into her ear from some unseen location._

_"Don't you think that would have defeated the purpose? Trial and error, Shepard. You tried. You erred. Next time you try, don't err. It's as simple as that. Ditch the rifle."_

_She stumbled briefly, casting a suspicious glance to no one in particular. McDowell made it incredibly difficult for her to give him shit, especially since she was so much more inclined to facial expressions and body language rather than witty retort. It was hard to give an audio transmission the bird. It also felt rather stupid. _

_"What do you want me to do? Throw it down and talk them to death? Fuck, I'm not good at that either." She couldn't argue, though. Shepard had terrible aim with the bulky thing. The standard-grade Lancers were formidable in the right hands, but they were reckless weapons with a very large margin of error. The point was power, but the accuracy was shifty at best. Shepard took some offense, having thought herself vastly improved with the firearm. _

_McDowell chided back, "Cute. No, I want you to use your pistol."_

_Shepard came to level ground, arriving at a small crater-like formation surrounded by jagged ridges on all side. They were only about eight feet high, but the traction didn't appear very promising. The slopes were steep and smooth, revealing virtually no footholds to speak of. By now, she had winded herself to the point of panting. She turned from her receiver, taking a few deep breaths before turning to reply. _

_"These are AR-1 class drones. It'll take a whole two clips just to get through their shields."_

_"You're wasting even more with that rifle. The pistol takes precision and a steady hand, but it can be just as effective as a higher caliber weapon with practice. Plus, it'll make you hyper-aware of your surroundings. Without the bulk of that thing to shield you, you'll rely less on the force of it and more on your own evasive actions. Better firing mobility, faster rate… The one you've got equipped was loaded with some of the milder tungsten rounds. It'll take out anything synthetic five times faster than the rifle."_

_McDowell had been a remarkably patient teacher. Still, he was firm and drew a distinct line in the sand as far as their friendship was concerned during missions. Shepard had known overbearing officers and intimidation during her haze at basic training, but McDowell was a fair, level instructor. He made his share of demands, but always managed to make them seem achievable. Shepard had leapt through a plethora of hoops, but for once felt like they were all paying off. The last six months of this regimen had rewarded her with a newfound pride and evident improvement in combat. Before, she had felt like a frightened child in the field. Now, she felt part predator, aware of everything and everyone at the same time. While there were still massive improvements to be made, she already felt as though he had completely reworked her entire skill base. _

_McDowell remained low profile during her training operations, never once admitting to anyone (that Shepard knew of) about these daily routines. Still, the man appeared to be doing well for himself and had earned a promotion to Lieutenant Commander. Word traveled fast of the workings of a replacement for Harris, who had done his best to squelch such talk. Still, general sentiments around the camp were favorable towards McDowell and his potential success. Shepard quietly hoped that McDowell would do little better for fear of his transfer to a much larger garrison or fleet. It was undeniably selfish of her, hence she never denied it._

_Talk of her own rapid rise had warranted the interest of the rest of the 130__th__ division. While her skill in combat was impressive, it was her tactical approach that had earned appreciative remarks. McDowell had taken notice of this and constantly reminded Shepard that this was excellence according to the 130__th__, hardly the standards of an active fleet. This stifled her pride considerably, but talk of achievement continued. Shepard often speculated afterwards whether or not McDowell had simply planted the thought in the hopes of keeping her grounded, that maybe she did have some special qualification for something better. She never asked and he never brought it up, leaving her silently wondering._

_But she could sense it. Every day, she was getting stronger, faster, her mind sharper. Yes, she had her bad days, but even more frequent were the quick decisions that left her standing atop some fierce foe, victorious when she was supposed to be considering her own defeat. McDowell always managed to maintain a blank face, but Shepard looked for that tic at the corner of his mouth, the muscle that fought against his will to make him smile. There was more there she had to unearth. There was approval waiting behind the well-trained face and she wouldn't rest until she could touch it._

_She reached behind her, snapping the rifle back in place as she switched it out for the P7, "I'll take your word for it."_

_Shepard approached the furthest wall, scanning the surface for something to grip, something strong enough for her to hoist herself upwards. _

_The low buzzing of an anti-gravity thruster recaptured her attention, just a foot above her head. Her eyes drifted upwards, landing on the AR-2 class combat drone gliding slowly towards her. She backed up when the thing didn't fire, noticing a striking lack of screaming alarms or flashing lights. Her heart pounded against her ribcage as she gradually put distance between her and the massive thing. It was roughly two and a half times larger than the sentries she was used to and it was armed with a long-beamed laser that hung from its underbelly. _

_Shepard remained dead silent, too cautious to announce any of this to McDowell on the other end for fear of triggering some sort of sensor. All around her, the whirs and clicks of smaller drones rose up and over the ridge, descending into the crater with her. There had to be at least seven, eight including the AR-2. Without warning, they spun and opened fire, coming down on all sides of her._

_She ran. Oh, how she ran. Bullets flew past, sending her shields flying up. The blue light wavered, flickering red with each new assault. She could feel the core heating, straining to maintain its outermost defenses. Shepard dove straight for the AR-2, tucking in for a combat roll as she swerved to avoid a straight line of fire. She uncurled and sprang up, firing at the rear of the machine. Its shields deflected the first two shots, but the third connected with metal and left a searing hole._

_Each drone zeroed in, speeding towards her as she ran the perimeter, covering her back with the ledges behind her. One veered out of formation and shot straight for her, head on. Shepard clutched the trigger tightly, arm steeled to maintain her aim as she landed hit after hit directly into its optical lens. It shattered, sending the drone spiraling into the ridge. It connected and burst into flames, leaving the other seven to continue the assault._

_She didn't have the resources to take them all out with one pistol. They were concentrated enough that the rifle might be able to nick a few, but she was already running low on ammunition. Close quarters made any miss a potential disaster. No, she had to forge an alternative. _

_She ran faster, calves burning as she spurred herself onward. She shifted left, boots connecting with wall as she started to move up the side. There wasn't enough momentum yet, but it gave her the angle she needed. Two more drones zigzagged and fired, taking out a chunk of rock in their wake. It fell, connecting with her shoulder and sending her off-balance. She staggered for a half-step, but sheer need impelled her to keep going._

_Her pistol proved to be a deadly asset, connecting with everything she aimed at. It was almost effortless, but she had to keep firing to make it worthwhile. Higher and higher, she ran until she was virtually horizontal along the ridge. Finally, with the horizon in sight and a swarm of drones flying in continuous circles, she vaulted over the ledge and unclipped the grenade at her side, arming and hurling it dead center as she skidded onto her back. _

_Scrap flew in all direction, blown upwards by the dark black blast. Her ears throbbed from the force, catching the sounds of failing machinery as the clamor died down. She scrambled forward, belly down as she crawled to the edge, pistol braced in both hands as she shifted her barrel from scrap heap to scrap heap, never resting on one for too long. No, she had learned enough in her short time to know when to be certain she had neutralized a target. _

_Below her lay a blackened ditch, littered with scorched panels and crackling circuit boards. She counted them all, her eyes sorting the pieces into their proper forms as she identified them. _

_All but one. She stood up, poised to fire. AR-2's main gun lay in a heap in the center, but she couldn't make out any of its other parts. Shepard has studied these, made sure she knew their markings and number of outboard panels. The AR-2 was distinctively wider, almost winged in shape. There was nothing down there that could have matched its hull._

_She gingerly slid back down into the crater, remaining upright despite the steep slope. Pistol at the ready she approached the pile at the center. She could feel the heat of the smoke on all sides of her and did her best to inhale as little as possible. Something snapped with a loud pop and the heap groaned._

_The AR-2 rose from beneath it, thruster spewing sparks as it shot up to her level. The shield had been destroyed at its body was missing whole chunks. Wires crackled where a turret had once been attached. It looked relatively harmless as it fluttered up and down. Harmless, save for the laser still in place. It whistled, charged, then fired in the blink of an eye._

_Shepard went down, landing in a heap of charred, Alliance-issued scrap._

_"Fuck, fuck, fuck, FUCK!! Fucking shit, McDowell! Fucking SHIT!" Shepard screamed and convulsed on the ground, body encased in a squirming blue mess of static. It flashed and faded, leaving her heaving on the ground._

_Heaving, she sat up to find McDowell sliding down the ridge, painfully straight-faced. The drone sputtered and fell to the ground with a loud clang and crunch, spent. McDowell approached and waited for the static to subside before he crouched down to remove a small blue data card from the machine's insides. _

_"That could have gone much better," he said mildly, much to Shepard's displeasure. _

_She stood up, hissing through her teeth as the heat subsided. Her joints felt as though they had been dipped in rocket fuel and set aflame. The pain was dwindling, but she couldn't shake that initial sensation of being flung into a careening abyss of white hot pain. She was amazed she was still in one piece. The current made her feel as though her limbs would rip themselves off if they didn't burst into flames first._

_"Get to that later. What the fuck just hit me?" she groaned, beginning to tremble from the force of it. Little by little, the heat receded and left her to take note of the more physical injuries. Her right shoulder had begun to throb, no doubt heavily bruised from its encounter with the falling rock. _

_He held up the blue pad before her. It was compact and could fit neatly into a palm, but she regarded it with more disdain than she ever felt towards a nonliving thing._

_"This, Shepard, is the recipe for that fierce pain I promised you way back when. It's a system override that adjusts the charge of the AR-2 laser. Now, left alone, that beam has enough concentrated energy to burn a hole through the front of your skull and out the back. This is a merciful alternative... an electrical current that does a very memorable number on the nervous system. No long-term damage, though, which makes it an ideal learning tool. "_

_Shepard scoffed and spit. She had a hard time believing that the unholy hell she had experienced minutes ago could have been apart of any such act of kindness._

_"As I was saying," McDowell continued, breaking to allow Shepard her moment of indignity, "An alternative to dying. Consider this incentive to never get shot again."_

_"I thought I was going to explode," she retraced her steps and collected her pistol, panting all the while. There was a new respect for the P7 and the damage it did. Shepard fondly holstered it, finding some pride in that success._

_"Good. Now, if you'd like to avoid experiencing that again, you'll make sure you never end up in someone's line of fire."_

_Her mouth hung open. "What?"_

_"From here on out, all the AR-1's will be outfitted with the same laser. Take a hit and you'll enjoy a nostalgic throwback to ten minutes ago."_

_She stared at him good and hard, the burning in her lungs subsiding as her breathing regulated. "You can't be serious."_

_McDowell pocketed the data module and met her eyes, "Dead serious. Don't want to feel like that again? Then don't get hit."_

_The Pavlovian technique seemed archaic to her, but it made cold, cruel sense. It was behavioral conditioning at its finest. A few more months of this and she would probably develop cat-like reflexes, all for the sake of forgoing the same mind-searing agony that had trapped her in stasis. She wanted to begrudge him for it, but knew all too well just how valuable that kind of device could be. These next few weeks were going to suck in new and colorful ways._

_"You're not eating enough," McDowell said abruptly._

_Shepard hesitated, resigning herself to the lecture she was due. Truth be told, the night's meal she had given up wasn't the first of its kind. It had become a daily thing, each portion somehow traded out for information or supplies. Her preferred nutrition bars were hard to come by and they didn't sustain her enough to make up for the severe conditions McDowell had her working in._

_"How can you tell?" she asked dumbly. Shepard knew McDowell had all kinds of ways to pick up these details. He was remarkably good at taking note of the littlest things, relevant or not to the moment. He had called her on many of her tics early on, almost always catching her off guard. McDowell used them like non sequiturs, devoid of humor but equally effecting and off-putting. _

_He had caught her once before struck dumb by the sight of smoke. Shepard had only paused for a moment, or so she thought. She held her breath when she could, trying hard not to get a whiff of it. McDowell had asked her weeks later what made her squirm and she wasn't prepared for it. Her deep-rooted respect for him drove her to answer. No other marine on the planet had earned as much of an explanation as McDowell did. He put up with her neurosis and talked her through nights of excruciating physical exhaustion._

_He hadn't said anything to confirm his understanding, but he was quiet. Solemn eyes gave her reason to believe that he registered plenty. His silence meant more to her than anything else he could have said then. It still applied today. She had told him as frankly as she could manage back then in a word that meant everything to her and so little to thousands more._

_'Home.'_

_"That combat suit is meant to mold perfectly to the wearer. I shouldn't be able to see any of it hanging off you like I do now. You're fatigued, gaunt, and irritable. Telltale signs right there." _

_Shepard shrugged, accepting defeat. "I'll work on it."_

_McDowell nodded, apparently satisfied with her words alone. "The P7 brought you closer to genuine success than I've ever seen on these runs. The rifle throws you off balance too easily when you're on unsure footing. It's irrelevant now; you've proved that you can do the job twice as well with a pistol. Arm yourself with that when you're scouting on the ridge from now on. As for the showdown here, well…"_

_He paused as though searching for words, leaving Shepard waiting expectantly for what she thought might be a sliver of approval._

_"I'll level with you, Shepard, I honestly didn't expect that of you. Care to explain your reasoning?"_

_It wasn't exactly the admission of a job well done she had expected, but it was a start. She had to think back to those earlier nights, looking over the data packs Stevens had uploaded to her module. He had secured a good connection to the extranet through a transient mining party a few months ago. Shepard sent him out with a kind of grocery list of experimental projects and requests for schematics and breakdowns. This included some of the mundane production files for the SR class that occasionally got dumped there. While they didn't always have the most updated information on weaponry, they revealed plenty about their internal processors and factory errors._

_"I can't lie… You _did_ give me a scare with the SR-2. I noticed in the reports that the SR series as a whole had a problem with centripetal force. Thrusters had a delay in matching the opposite force required to propel the drone's equal mass in the opposite direction… blah blah, something along those lines. Anyway, that combined with inertia gave me a few seconds to get out of there and get a grenade off. They were probably still flying in circles by the time it detonated." Shepard couldn't really figure out why this hadn't spelled itself out for it at the time. She had known, though. Some part of her had found the knowledge and compelled her to act accordingly. It just took a while for the reasoning to surface._

_McDowell rubbed his chin, tanned hands contrasting against the five o'clock shadow. "So you ran the perimeter to set them on a circuit… Makes sense. A little crude, but it works."_

_"I underestimated the SR-2. I knew I had a blast amplifier mod. Figured it would have been enough to take it down." It was the honest truth. Logically, the force of the blast _should _have ripped it to shreds, but there were all sorts of factors and odds that could have altered the blast radius._

_"What should I have done differently? Considering the elements I could actually control."_

_"I want to give you a hard time about it, but it'd just be senseless now. Shepard, you did respond well considering the situation. It should have shut down with the SR-1's."_

_He sighed, "There are, however, times when we make all the right decisions. We go by the book, stick to protocol… Everything falls into place."_

_His face darkened noticeably. Shepard was learning to read tells, too, and McDowell's were rarely subtler than her own. She could see clear as day that he was going back. She had seen it once in front of Harris' office and every other time a marine took a bullet under his command. It was someplace Shepard never wanted to go, but she wondered. She wondered what sort of obscurity could pull a man as honored and steadfast as McDowell back into its depths._

_"Once in a while, though, something happens that we can't account for. It can seem so flawless. Error can appear absolutely impossible. But, in an instant, perfection fails and leaves you. The hard part is figuring out what went wrong when everything went as planned. That is, if you live long enough to reflect on it."_

_The darkness receded, back to the place that brewed nightmares and mutated memories. She thought, once, that maybe his darkness was a kind like her own. He was strong in the face of it, though. It didn't bend him like it did her. _

_"What do you do? What _can _you do when it all goes to hell?" Her words had softened, just slightly. It almost surprised her. She spoke as though her voice might topple mountains if she wasn't careful._

_McDowell shocked her then with a smile she hadn't seen before. It wasn't the one she had hoped might break through one day and melt ice. It was small, true, and heartbreakingly hopeless. The last touch of sun before the frozen shadow of winter._

_"You hope to God someone out there can save you."_

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Yep! Ends there. HI-HO! Want more Garrus? Then you better damn well review.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's Notes: **__Well, this took longer than I expected. Wait, no. That's a lie. I totally expected this._

_I beat Mass Effect last night and was thoroughly impressed… if not sad. What am I going to do with my life now? TT Actually, I've already planned to play it through again, Renegade style._

_BIG NOTE! The title is changing from "Fracture" to "Modus Operandi" because I realized I suck at titles, but I like Latin. I think it fits better, anyways. Poo._

_More Garrus for you, but you'll have to hang on for what I have in store. I'll try my damndest not to disappoint._

_On a self-depreciating note, I went through a rough spot the other night when I realized I'm a shit writer and can't compare to a lot of my favorite fics out there. It was pretty damn humbling and kept me from continuing the story for a while._

_Still not real confident anymore, but I'm going to keep going because it makes me happy. Thanks to those of you who have tolerated my crap thus far._

_Now I'll stop wasting your time. Here's some Bioware copyright. _

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Shepard's world was reduced to color and silence. There was the smell of burning rubber. Time had slowed down so much that simply blinking took minutes. Sound returned; the beating of her heart, ticking in time. Her own breathing. Heavy, but even. Her back was hot, surely signed. Improbable, though, through the layer of form-fitting insulation. From then on, time sped up as if sliding down a slope, gravity granting speed as it ate up the distance. Blaring alarms burned through the fog of her deafness, screaming warnings on behalf of the Mako that shielded them.

The world shifted as the ground below her wavered. No, not the ground. Garrus. Shepard had stayed atop him, little more than dead weight to keep him down and out. He was moving now. She figured he too was coming to his senses. She could hear Ashley scraping around behind her, getting to her feet. Garrus made a sound of protest at his immobility. He craned his head sideways as Shepard returned to herself, gradually peeling her body from his. Alien eyes blinked back at her. He coughed and groaned.

"Commander?"

Everything was set on normal speed; perhaps faster. The gunfire renewed on the other end of the Mako, the screech and thud of mechanical legs hailing the approach of the armatures. She rolled off him and crouched low, finding the absurdity in the predicament.

"This is what your kind call 'déjà vu', isn't it?" Garrus called out over the din of another slew of gunfire. He beat her to stating the obvious. Oh, there was humor in it alright. She acknowledged that. There just wasn't time to laugh over the brief bout of awkward.

Williams was already up and leaning against the rover, shouting. "Ma'am! The Mako isn't going to hold much longer! We have to move!"

The notion would have been suicidal to any other crew, but Williams had fought her share of geth these past few weeks and knew more than Shepard gave her credit for. The two of them had the know-how to get it done, but Garrus? Well, he had stated quite plainly that he wanted to learn and figured now was as good a time as any for some hands-on experience. She only hoped he was as adept as she believed him to be.

Shepard nodded and stood up. Garrus rose without assistance this time as something in his face hardened. She wasn't sure what it was, exactly. While turians all managed to convey emotions well through their speech, these expressions took a bit more deciphering. Something in her knew better. No bells, no whistles, but she could see it harden his features. This was the long-feared warrior that had sent both their races into total war.

"Go!" Shepard barked, skidding through upturned soil as she led them out from behind their deteriorating blockade.

Bullets streamed past them and another rocket erupted from the cannon beyond, colliding with the foot of the ridge as the geth attempted to target the moving strike team.

With the tank out of commission and no viable cover, Shepard knew they had to keep moving if they were going to stand a chance. She weaved closer, keeping the armatures busy as they strained to lock on target. Her shots landed with deadly precision, quickly wearing down the barriers between her and metal flesh. She could hear the blaring of an assault rifle beside her as Garrus reequipped accordingly. His accuracy was impressive, especially considering Shepard's own ineptitude when it came to heavy firepower. Once, this was a sore spot for. Now, it was a worthy sacrifice in return for a slightly different specialization.

The pistol should have been red hot from use, but her rate of fire merely increased with each round she let loose. The third armature buckled, front left leg giving out from under it with a static crack and groan. It fell forward, exposing the underbelly to Shepard's precise aim. After the next two shots, it burst into flames.

Rockets continued to land dangerously close to her team mates. Shepard focused on the trooper in the rear and burst forward, unleashing a hailstorm of explosive bullets. The geth lurched sideways, but managed to keep its rocket upright. By now, Shepard was close enough to count how many fingers and toes it had. Unfortunately for the geth, her aim only improved over time and she blew the limbs clear off the body, letting the rest collapse into scrap.

"Shepard! On your right!" Garrus screamed from behind her. She knew better than to turn around and look at him. No, she had learned long ago to stop asking questions and take a simple direction when in combat. This usually meant less bleeding.

This just wasn't one of those times, though. She spun right in time to see the armature fire one of its lesser turrets. There was only time to do just that. The rounds came in rapid succession, making her marvel momentarily at how something could get off so many shots in such a short amount of time. Shepard possessed the skill, but it made so much more sense when she went through the motions. How a machine could accomplish that… It was just too damn annoying.

Her shields held off the first few blows, forcing her to stumble back. The next broke through and connected with her left arm, applying terrible pressure to the combat armor. The last shot succeeded where all the others failed and pierced through the synthetic weaving, lodging itself within her arm.

Shepard roared as the bullet burned inside her flesh, certain the thing was cauterizing her insides. Her vision wavered, but never failed. It was a vicious pain that did nothing to improve her concentration, but she had known this kind of ache before. It was a relentless, blazing sensation, but it could not break her resolve. Not now. Not ever again. Holes healed.

Her good arm had the pistol up and firing, whizzing through shields and denting the artificial beast. It crumpled, front legs folding underneath it while the turrets fired rapidly. Another 'chk-chk-_BOOM_' from Ashley's shotgun blew the long neck clear off its body. The headless stump sputtered as open-ended wires flailed like worms in the mud. Then it sank completely, silenced.

Shepard pressed on, her pistol clicking and whirring as it disarmed back in its holster. Williams and Garrus jogged towards her as she returned to the Mako. Garrus caught sight of the wounded arm and instantly reached for a pack of medi-gel from his small inventory. She waved it away, earning confused looks from the rest of her squad.

"There's a slug in there. The flesh will heal over it," She explained matter-of-factly, a little winded.

Ashley nodded in understanding and jogged ahead to inspect the rover. Garrus, however, wasn't having any of it.

"We should remove it now. You're risking infection," he suggested firmly. The turian had sidled up close, as if anticipating for her to bolt from his presence. Shepard couldn't imagine what he expected would come of any such reaction. What could he do? Knock her out with a running tackle, pin her down and rip the bullet out for her? She knew he was the determined sort, but she had also hoped he didn't have any kind of death wish. Beating her down and forcibly removing a lead cylinder was a one way ticket to a sound beating.

Shepard stopped in her tracks and met Garrus' eyes, tilting her head back slightly to follow his height. "Please don't fight me on this right now, Garrus, we don't have time to waste. I'll deal with it once we're back on the Normandy. Until then, we just have to press on."

She left him them, making her way towards Ashley as she surveyed the vehicle. Shepard could have sworn her heard, no, _felt_ Garrus mutter softly behind her. "You consider healing yourself a waste of time?" Or something along those lines. For a moment, she thought she had imagined it.

"Williams, damage report," Shepard ordered, doing her best not to favor the injured arm as she inspected the hull. Williams popped up from the hatch, lifting up her visor to wipe her brow.

"The anti-grav thrusters are fried. Shield generator took a few blows, but nothing a little omni-gel won't fix. We should be up and moving in a few minutes." Williams pulled herself up and out, landing on the ground with a soft 'thud'.

Ashley flipped her visor back down and put her hands on her hips, a motion that reminded Shepard so blatantly of some old cheerleader vids she'd seen once or twice on the net. Nevermind why she bothered looking, "We should set her upright before we get too ahead of ourselves though. Give me a hand, Shepard?"

Whether Williams had taken notice of Shepard's injury or not seemed irrelevant by now. Garrus looked like he was preparing another protest, but Shepard shot him a look that quietly urged him to back off. The three of them deliberated, each proposing one way or another to right the rover. It was no small feat, but Shepard eventually positioned them where they could safely get all wheels on the ground without further injury. Her arm didn't like the excessive weight she was putting on it, but she kept silent as she worked. It was a nagging ache that annoyed her more so than it pained her. At least for the moment. There was nothing pleasurable about having a chunk of heavy metal lodged in her body.

Ashley volunteered her expertise and quickly set to work making the few repairs necessary to keep them moving. The thrusters _were _effectively shot, leaving few avenues for mending. There wouldn't be too much need for them, anyways. They were getting close to the first checkpoint and that only required that their cannon be fully operational.

Williams did a respectable job considering the short time she took making the repairs. With nothing left to keep them there, they filed back into the Mako.

Once Ashley was out of earshot, Shepard faltered, suddenly hooked by the urge to say something to Garrus. He was unusually sullen during their downtime and Shepard knew in her gut that they were to blame. She was clumsy with words and even more tactless when it came to feelings and hand-holding. Still, there had to be something in that vocabulary, a word or two that would quell fears and deal with emotional baggage.

There needed to be an exit strategy, though. She just couldn't stand twiddling her thumbs, gawking at him while fighting to put two syllables together. In favor of maintaining composure, she followed Garrus as he was preparing to mount the rover, taloned hands bracing for the lift up. Shepard stepped beside him, inhaling slowly as she reached for his arm. She let a gloved palm rest against the bulk of his armor, fingers curling gently around him in what she hoped was a reassuring manner.

It got his attention. He cocked his head at her, eyes shifting from the hand to her face. She felt like someone had turned on a glaring spotlight and fixed it directly over her. The planet became five degrees hotter.

"Shepard?" He tested, apparently just as unsure as she was. The motions fit, she thought. This was how people did it. This was how feelings were dealt with. Her body language seemed right. Was there anything defensive in her stance? No, it didn't feel like it. At that moment, she longed for a textbook or how-to guide. She needed some serious direction.

Risking verbal diarrhea, she went on. "Thanks, Garrus."

So far, so good. Minus the fact she couldn't remember for the life of her what she was thankful for.

"For what?" he asked, ever the detective and conveniently leading her in a direction she didn't want to go.

Shepard _was _grateful to him in a way she couldn't really explain. It felt juvenile and uncomfortable, but there was no escape. Nothing good could come of her shoving past him and diving head first into the hatch to avoid answering. As tempting as it was…

Maybe it was just that simple, though. Not the escape, but the reason. The reason behind this obligation to esteem him.

"For trying." It worked. It was right and honest and all she could have mustered at that point. Garrus' gaze bore into her then, giving her a small start. Turian eyes had something to them she found akin to the most base predators. There was a gleam deep within that she had seen before in old reels, memories of cat-like creatures and long-extinct reptiles stories tall and long extinct. Behind these, though, lay a mind more calculating and deadly than anything like the earthen beasts they had come to revere. Shepard was known for her own sub-zero stare, renowned for silencing common men and marine alike. They intimidated effectively, but unnerved many when she didn't intend to; the green of a frozen sea.

She withstood it as long as she could and let go, hoisting herself up and into the hatch before he could work up something to say. Her injured arm burned in protest and she grit her teeth, grateful her back was turned away from the agent.

Williams was in position and raring to go when Shepard climbed into the driver's seat. "We'd better hurry, ma'am."

Garrus followed in short order, pulling the hatch down behind him. It hissed as the rover sealed and he took his own battle station. Shepard couldn't tell from where she sat whether or not she had done more harm than good.

"Chief Williams is right. The faster we find the excavation site, the faster we get off this rock," Garrus called up, putting Shepard's fears to rest. _There _he was. The tone of command was back and so was the self-assured turian.

Shepard didn't need any more prompting. They were off without looking back.

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_The drop ship was downright imposing. She had seen shots of these things in passing news vids, but never up close. Alliance carriers were monstrous things, but even their smaller attachments dwarfed their craft here at the 130__th__ garrison. Shepard wasn't sure if she had traveled in anything half as big, even during her initial deployment out here. It had mostly been touch and go with smaller cruisers. Now, she stared at a small piece of military pride, intended as a passenger._

_It had all come down to this; one half-assed goodbye. There should have been remorse, some form of regret at her leaving. Maybe it was no longer in her capacity. Likelier so, she was just too damn ready to get off this planet._

_The year had gone by fast, mission after mission taking up huge chunks of her days. Surveyors had heard the rumors and praise of the Lieutenant-Commander Shepard; calm under fire and a marvel to behold in the face of impossible escape. She had become a bane to pirates brazen enough to raid her parties. Mercenaries in the area regarded her as a shrewd negotiator with an unpredictable trigger finger. Unbeknownst to them, the fear tactics were usually the result of guess work and increasing good luck during instances of less-than-peaceful diplomacy. The apprehension wasn't so much of her willingness to fire, but more so her accuracy when doing so. She could be flat on her back, face down, upside-down, topsy-turvy or hurtling through the air. She hit her mark and hit it hard._

_The defining moment presented itself when officers from Alliance central intelligence arrived to assess the necessity of the regiment on Cafrim. Interest in the Voyager Cluster was dwindling and relocation seemed nigh. Except for the fact that these particular representatives found that the outpost was a key element in maintaining Alliance control over the planet's natural resources. The resources consisting entirely of unneeded irons and other compounds the Alliance could just as easily obtain from more populated systems. _

_They had insisted on surveying the frequented mining sites, calling on the services of Shepard's escort squad. Shepard considered the escort party with all the respect she could muster, but little of it was genuine. They were tight-lipped and antsy, jumping at slight noises and movements. Shepard knew the signs of an ulterior motive and quietly plotted the proper action. During a pit stop, she sent Gomez and Stevens ahead to their destination, requesting that they lay low. _

_  
When they arrived, fronts melted away and true purpose revealed itself. Unfortunately for intelligence, Shepard had alerted the rest of her squad to her suspicion. Marines serving under her were required to read her expressions and subtle signs carefully. It had become a skill for most of them, since she usually conveyed more through movements than words. There were minute hand signals she had strung together and taught them, if ever the time came for her to exercise them. Today, it all paid off. Seconds of eye contact and a flick of the wrist had her entire team aware and ready to make the move. When they arrived at the northern crater, the suits struck, guns drawn. The officers had apparently expected a quick clean up with no resistance, but Shepard had matched them. She had one man to each of theirs, each armed and ready to fire in unison with the intel. It was an old-fashioned stand off. Threats of detonators and subterranean charges had them all on edge, but Shepard wouldn't give an inch._

_The Alliance had its share of crooked suits, but most were sloppy when cornered. Not Turiov. The officer in charge of the operation was a cold, collected man with a penchant for deal making. While his subordinates shied away from pointed weapons, Turiov kept his mouth moving. He was slippery and molded words like a potter to clay. Shepard couldn't deny that this kind of smooth-talking was impressive, but she knew he would take any opportunity to strike out against her uncertainty._

_Exchanges continued in that crater during complete radio silence. Turiov had brought along enough disruptors to block communications mere feet away. They had about a snowball's chance in hell of reaching base via electronic communications. Odds were better if they ran up the ridge and shouted at the top of their lungs._

_It was a subversive operation, way off Alliance radar. There was a large group of Alliance military scattered throughout the galaxy working to appease a fleet of salarian revolutionaries. In return for information on black market growth hormones and massive helpings of Alliance resources, the salarians were offering large caches of credits and various illegal drugs. The corruption ran quietly throughout higher Alliance offices undetected for months. _

_Some salarians didn't think the genophage worked fast enough. The majority of the species regarded it as an elegant, humane solution to rebellion. A small portion regretted the action, but did little to combat the disease. An even smaller sect found the krogan absolutely undeserving of anything less than immediate annihilation. This led to the formation of a "Second Strike" group bent on forming a black-ops league of salarians with the sole purpose of destroying the heart of the problem. They were to become an advanced military unit, designed to carry out search-and-destroy operations and massacre krogan. The group remained unchecked, thanks to a handful of diplomats at the Citadel who strove to keep such information under lock and key. _

_Shepard's stomach had turned at the proposition. She couldn't say she had an extreme fondness for the species, but she harbored no ill wishes towards their survival. It was a human thing to nurture thoughts of revolution, to go against the grain and triumph in the face of terrible odds. The idea of human beings assisting in the extinction of a race fighting for basic freedom seemed backwards. It made her blood boil._

_Cafrim was an inconspicuous location for a rendezvous point with their salarian contact. Turiov had intended to make it look like a krogan merc party had destroyed Shepard's squad. He had the firepower to make it happen, too. The survivors would stumble back, hysterical and bloodied, relaying the terrible news. News would spread of krogan hostilities towards humanity and the rise of terrorism. The salarians would make it through, scot-free and hauling huge supplies of steroids. _

_But Gomez and Steven were poised behind them, well-hidden behind the scopes of their rifles. All it took was a twitch from Shepard. She tilted her head sideways as if working out a crick. Two of Turiov's men were down and a third followed quickly. Shots flew everywhere as she went head to head with Turiov. It was a blur of physical blows and flailing guns. She had him on the ground, wrestling with her for control. One hand punched while the other pushed against the gun pointed at her head. Bullets grazed her helmet, but never punctured. They rolled deeper into the crater, leaving the rest behind. All her weight went into keeping him from throwing her aside. She slugged him again and ahead, finding sick satisfaction in the crunch of his breaking nose. He was as enraged as he was bloody, finding new strength as the battle turned against him. It was a knock down, drag out brawl that had them both gasping for air. Turiov grasped her neck, wringing it with more force than she ever thought a human man could posses. Just as she thought her neck would snap in half, she got off a shot and took out his kneecap. He howled in pain, falling back to regroup. She was ready. The rest of her team filed in behind her as Shepard stared him down._

_She wanted to kill him. She wanted to see him dead and watch his blood pool around him. Death wasn't something she frequently wished upon her own kind, but she was filled with such rage and hatred that she could only imagine herself satisfied by ending his life brutally. _

_The moment should have scared her. Sometime later, it did, but standing in that crater… She could see only carnage and devastation of her doing. It was as though a dam had broken and a tidal wave of destruction was thundering towards her. It almost overtook her in that moment when her finger squeezed the trigger. But she fired no bullet. Instead, she grabbed her rifle and stormed towards a surprised Turiov. She hoisted up the heavy weapon and bludgeoned him, knocking him unconscious with the butt of it._

_No marine under her command suffered so much of a scrape. They radioed back to base as soon as they disabled the jamming signal and sent word of what they had uncovered. Calls were made and MP's arrived within the hour. The story unfolded quickly and revealed months of illegal activity among the Alliance's higher-ups. The salarian convoy was intercepted and the Citadel was alerted to the presence of the Second Strike. The next few weeks brought dozens of court marshals and exchanged apologies between the salarian military and the Alliance. _

_Turiov was arrested and later executed for previous crimes against the government, including the murder of a two human doctors and a krogan physician._

_Shepard couldn't believe she was still considered on active duty while all the interrogations took place. She meant with officials daily to repeat the same information she had told every other Alliance officer who questioned her. _

_This led to a prompt promotion to Lieutenant-Commander and a position on the MSV Lima, a sixth fleet cruiser stationed in the Armstrong Nebula. She was to be a part of a ground team housed within the cruiser's mass, intended for rescue missions and recon within the adjacent systems. _

_It was a far cry from the playtime she had come to know on Cafrim._

_Stevens was suddenly beside her. She hadn't heard him approach. "Shepard! Lieutenant-Commander McDowell wants to see you in his office."_

_She nodded and turned, clapping Stevens on the shoulder. "Watch my stuff."_

_Her 'stuff' consisted of barely more than a standard-issue uniform and mid-grade pistol. There were no real personal belongings to speak of or souvenirs. There was little left behind worth remembering. _

_McDowell's office was kept orderly in contrast to Harris' jumbled mess. Harris had long since been hauled off Cafrim to an equally mind-numbing job on another dead-end system. McDowell took his place immediately and refilled the position with a collected pride. There was a definite change in morale since his appointment and it all worked for the better. _

_He sat at his desk, typing away at a softly-glowing file. His lips quirked in the signature broken smile as she entered. He rose as she entered and the two stood still for a moment. Shepard was shocked at his sudden display of rank. The two were equals in that department, not that it had ever affected their exchanges in the past. But now, they were the same and the garrison had little need for two when one was better off elsewhere. At least, that's what Shepard told herself._

_"I realized a little too late that I never congratulated you." McDowell's eyes shifted to the chair across from him, but didn't invite her to sit. Shepard wasn't sure he wanted her to get too comfortable._

_"It should be you, McDowell." She said softly, remembering the words spoken a year ago. The guilt struck her hard and it all seemed wrong. She owed everything to this man who asked for virtually nothing in return. There was no justice in this._

_But McDowell scoffed. "Shepard, I never fired your weapon for you. I never took your bullets and I never told you what to do. Not when it counted."_

_Shepard shook her head, wrestling with the notion. "You did everything else. You taught me how to aim. You showed me how to dodge'm. You gave me the reasoning to decide for myself."_

_The lines of his face had deepened over time and the once-youthful man appeared so much older these days. For every month that passed, years seemed to go by for him. Shepard could never understand why and never managed to squeeze it out of him._

_"Knowledge alone isn't enough to get me out of here. It's practice and you're damn good at that." He took her by surprise as the compliment sunk in. _

_He met her eyes then and all the walls behind them fell away. Shepard couldn't tell if he had done so willingly, or if something in him had cracked._

_"I'm sorry, Shepard. I thought I'd be able to keep my wits about me. I'm getting senile. You remember when gene therapy was all the rage? Well… maybe not. You're still young. The goal was to look better, younger… for longer. I'm fifty years old and you'd never guess it, would you?"_

_Shepard's brow furrowed, alarmed by this sudden bout of honesty. She said nothing, though, too invested to stop it._

_"I suppose that's beside the point. Shepard, this position's had its share of ups and downs. I do my job, I get information. About you. All of you. Your file grows longer everyday. It's impressive, no doubt. Harris' might not have liked you, but he did his job. The reports are accurate, credit's given when it's due. But there's one more piece here that I've yet to look at. Figure there's no point in reading it since you're no longer under my command. Call it stanch curiosity… I haven't touched your background report and I'd like to know if I have your permission to read it."_

_The world froze around her. Planets stopped spinning as the sun grew cold above her. There was the smell. The burning rubber and sound of shattering glass. Static and screams. Fire and jet fuel._

_"Sir…" Shepard spoke, if only to shatter the silence that threatened to suffocate her._

_"Again, this is a request. These matters don't usually eat away at me, but I've seen what it does to you. I've done my share of guessing, but nothing's come close to the source. I figure I've waited long enough to know. Just depends on whether or not you agree." McDowell didn't press it._

_She owed it to him. She did. Her honor would shatter if she boarded that dropship without giving McDowell what he was due. Even then, some part of her, some tiny, voiceless part urged her to speak. As though words would mend._

_"I'm from Mindoir," Shepard began slowly._

_McDowell didn't seem ready for it. Shepard figured he had expected her permission to read it for himself. She believed he had earned more._

_"I was sixteen, working a farm on the colony with my parents. It was supposed to be a huge harvest. We were all out there when the slavers attacked and blew our compound apart. I don't remember much in between. My family was there, then they just… weren't. I don't know how long I had been hiding when the Alliance patrol finally showed up. They picked me up and that was that. I've done my best to block most of the details out."_

_It should have hurt more. Each word should have been like a razor slicing across her tongue. There should have been the stench of rotting corpses and a life gone to ruin. Instead, there was the quiet hum of McDowell's cooling system and the murmur of conversation outside. _

_Neither spoke for a moment. _

_McDowell went first. "Thank you, Shepard."_

_Someone rapped at the door, calling through the grating. "Shepard's being called. They're getting ready to depart." Stevens' voice. _

_Shepard ventured a little further, testing the waters she had long respected. "I always wanted to ask you, McDowell… Why are you here?" The man had been trained for far more than what his duties required of him here. She had the experience to see that now. There were few things in this galaxy that would drive a man to permanent residence on Cafrim._

_The same cracked smile. "Maybe some other time. They're waiting for you."_

_There was no need to pursue it. Shepard had given McDowell what he wanted and she could ask little more of him. _

_McDowell straightened and saluted. Shepard's heels clicked together as she returned the salute reflexively. _

_It wasn't right. He didn't owe her this kind of respect. He couldn't expect her to take it. The way he looked at her, like a proud father watching a daughter leave home for broader horizons. At once, that's what he was. In that cramped, sterile space, he was suddenly all the family she had ever known since Mindoir. He had set her goals and put her on the right path towards achieving them. He pulled her up and out of the mud, cleaned her off, and turned her into a force to be reckoned with. _

_Cafrim had been purgatory, or at least Shepard's concept of it. There were many reasons these days why she didn't believe in God, but she could understand the concept of endless waiting. Cleansing. She had landed here in a state of disarray. Constantly shell-shocked, she tumbled around like a husk of the once-living. Every hour brought a unique form of punishment and alienation. Every sunset promised the same tomorrow; devoid of hope and redemption. It was a cycle of failure, each day bringing her back to the memory of death and obliteration of the life she once treasured. She was stuck in a time warp, thrashing to break the chains that held her in place._

_McDowell had rebuilt her and she was stronger for it. Shepard cursed him, then, wishing terribly that she _would _break and tell him exactly what it meant to the girl who had forsaken everything. _

_Her only solace was the hope that he already knew exactly what she wanted to say._

_"Sir."_

_"Ma'am." He stood at ease. "Good luck, Shepard."_

_Her chest tightened as her salute fell. Words failed and she could only nod as she left the base of operations. _

_Stevens passed off the small duffel and saluted as well. Her lips quirked, giving him the best smile she could muster. He beamed back at her. _

_"Go out there and kick some ass, will ya?" He jerked his head towards the drop ship as it roared to life, the crew assembling to board._

_The smile morphed into smirk, something she hadn't been able to express in a long, long time. "Gladly."_

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I suck. Sorry guys. ;; Thanks for reading this far. I WILL press on. 


	5. Chapter 5

_**Author's Notes: **__I have a ridiculous superstition where I don't write an author's note until I'm done with a story, but I'm defying it right now in order to explain something before I forget._

_I've tried to do my research for those of you who are nitpicky about rank and file. This has caused me some problems, especially while attempting continuity. According to the game, Shepard is a marine. Her rank, however, does not exist in the marines. Commander is a naval rank, subordinate to Captain, Rear Admiral, etc. If she were a marine, the equivalent rank would be Lt. Colonel. So, I'm trying to make things work until I get corrected by someone who knows more._

_Also, big errors in chapter three finally came to my attention and I'm going to fix them as soon as I… remember to fix them._

_I go back to school on Sunday, which marks the end of my free time. I'll try very hard to keep writing._

_Special thanks go out to Emi, Dreamweaver, Nvrmore and the rest of you for the kind words. I lurve your reviews. Again, SANKYUU for sticking with me. For those of you who read this and haven't reviewed, DO SO. I gots ta know where to stalk you. OwO_

_Bioware will probably shoot me for what you are about to read._

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Shepard nudged the slick white torso with her foot. The optic light flickered and whirred faintly, but her pistol was up and armed. She put a bullet through the geth's head and all artificial life faded from it. It was dead weight against her boot, eternally silenced. Garrus approached from the left, semi-crouched as he nosed through the fallen with the barrel of his sniper rifle. Williams pushed forward from the right, shotgun buzzing with the heat of the last round, fired mere moments earlier. Shepard led them on, calling a halt with a raised fist as they approached the front gate. The Mako's cannon had made short work of the turrets thanks to their side approach, but there was no way of knowing what lurked within the compound. They needed the door open if they were going to continue on with the rover. The prospect of hiking the next few kilometers was so unappealing to Shepard that she briefly considered blasting the damn thing open with everything she had.

The pain in her arm hadn't dulled nearly as much as she would have liked, but it wasn't strong enough to slow her down. Her movements remained tight and precise, unhindered by the flesh wound. Thoughts of prying it out were more painful than walking around with it.

They had cleared the front gatehouse of its solitary guard, landing an effective headshot that had the white sentry reeling until it fell face first, dead as a machine could be. Passage lay within the controls of the rear gatehouse and that meant risking very short-range combat. Shepard was hesitant in close-quarters combat, disliking walls pressing on all sides. She needed ample space for maneuvering and the lack thereof did not bode well.

She gave the silent signal to advance, satisfied with their fallen quarry. They approached two options; two ramps. The glass offered terrible visibility and Shepard couldn't see through to make out the green console they needed. It would be a game of guess and check, as per usual.

Wordlessly, she led them up the furthermost ramp, Williams and Garrus pivoting as they checked their angles. Inside, they faced a large silo-type structure with no distinguishing features. Shepard took it for a power generator, noting the small cables leading from an output and along the panels they lay upon. Her eyes followed the wires down the row and up the slope, resting on the three-pronged apparatus lying on the floor.

The 'prongs' clicked, revealing a clone of the same object.

Shepard's internal alarm went off. Not tools. _Feet._

She backed against the generator, siding along until she saw the rest of the geth's body standing idly before the gate control. She gave the signal and they rushed it in a blaze of gunfire. It clicked rapidly in surprise, the strange vocal processors screaming incoherent patterns of beeps and ticks. A call for help, perhaps, but Shepard knew well enough that all possible reinforcements were currently dismembered and littering the enclosure, ignorant to the distress call. Garrus flared orange beside her and the geth's rifle exploded in its hands. It backed into the grating, only to meet a swift end through the mercy of Shepard's quick and accurate shot.

It slumped to the ground, limbs tangled together in a charred heap. Shepard kicked it aside to get to the console, its metal body screeching as it scraped against the hard metallic floor. She tore open the covering and set to work decrypting the system. Williams called back from the rear, but Shepard was only half concentrating on her words.

"Looks like there're some supplies back here."

Everything fell into place as the controls acknowledged her request. The massive barrier groaned as it slid back into the gatehouse, clearing the path ahead. Williams' words finally hit and she turned around to see the source of the attention. Sure enough, Garrus and Williams had found two small crates and a heavy, wall-mounted locker. Shepard nodded and the two went to work gathering the contents of the smaller two. She approached the tall container, assessing the system as best she could. Unfortunately, the case was heavily guarded and sported some locking mechanisms she had never seen before. There was a different hinge here and there didn't appear to be an onboard sensor or touch panel. Her eyes strained as they examined the device, looking over the same places, hoping that they'd have changed in the milliseconds it took to shift her gaze.

Defeat was something she didn't easily admit, even in such trite cases as this. Advanced decryption was not her specialization and she had limited knowledge of higher electronics. Self-training had given her all she knew about the most simplistic of technologies and this stuff was just way out of her league. Frustrating, too, considering how well she usually did with the just the central skills. Still, all things had their limit. She just had a knack for pushing it. But this was like running again and again into a steel wall and she knew it showed on her face. Brow furrowed, heavily creased in concentration. To no fruition…

"Volus handiwork," Garrus broke her focus and she forced herself to swallow the rebuke rising in her throat. Shepard turned her attention to the turian agent, making an effort to change the irritation to honest curiosity.

Garrus' eyes lingered on Shepard longer than she would have liked. Perhaps that anger hadn't been successfully transitioned into something less accusatory. He sure as hell looked like he'd seen something vicious.

She expected him to mention it and applauded him for not doing so. Instead, he continued, speaking a little faster as though to make up for the pause.

"You don't see this sort very often. Not anymore, at least. There's no central input on them. They're all preset with inert sensors. Decrypting something like this used to require a specific, rudimentary program. These days, it's much easier to simply overload the system with a large electrical current."

Shepard cut right to the chase, hoping Garrus had experience to back up his explanation. "Do you have a charge strong enough to take it out?"

Garrus nodded, omni-tool flickering to life as he set to the task at hand. "Just need a minute to find the input… "

Shepard took a small step back, giving the turian the space she assumed needed for whatever he was attempting. She caught Williams out of the corner of her eye, just right of her. The expression she found was of wary interest. Ashley looked as though she expected a vengeful gremlin to burst from the case and latch onto her face. Or something of the like. Either way, she certainly wasn't exuding excitement.

The sound began as a high-pitched whistle, increasing in frequency until sparks flew and the contraption burst with the invisible force. Garrus ripped the bar from the hinges and pushed the door open, revealing an ample supply of ammunition and spare parts.

Shepard shook her head, silently berating herself. The needless pride… the assumed grasp of all things technological. She had prepared a reproach for Garrus before all this; before he revealed to them a store of much-needed provisions and a tidbit of information involving technology. Shepard could give or take the know-how, but couldn't deny the value of Garrus' skills. A flat smirk stole across her lips. There was little humor in it. More shame than anything.

Garrus turned from the locker and regarded her with a look of uncertainty.

Shepard couldn't wipe the smirk off. "Nice job, Garrus."

The turian didn't take too well to surprises, as Shepard was quickly learning. Every word of praise or short exchange of concern warranted looks of disbelief and astonishment, as though he simply couldn't get his mind around a human ever bestowing anything upon him but sentiments of loathing. Shepard wondered if the race was capable of experiencing heart attacks, since she seemed to be on the fast track to giving him one.

"Thank you, Shepard," he replied with a slight nod of the head; almost a bow.

Williams cleared her throat, bringing Shepard back to the here and now. "No offense everybody, but if we stop congratulating each other long enough, I think we might be able to get out of here."

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_Five men and three women were placed directly under Shepard's command. Most of them were seasoned marines, hailing from comfortable stations in the local system. Though none boasted outstanding merits, they were presented as promising graduates of the Titan Marine Academy. They were intended for immediate deployment, but increasing rates of enlistment had the Alliance reconsidering their choice to thrust these highly specialized recruits into the heat of things when there were others readily available and willing. These 'others' consisted mainly of hyper-patriotic Earthborn raring to see the vastness of space for themselves. Nevermind military school. They were shipped off to basic training mere days after enrollment. Months later, they were fodder for the cannon. Shepard knew the formula. She had fit into the equation once. These days, though, she was the one making the calculations. _

_A surplus of willing bodies spared these trained students from the drudgery of a life on soulless rocks like Cafrim. She wondered whether or not brochures for recruitment these days featured proud soldiers standing watch in the centers of bustling colonies, walking tall and stiff as grateful citizens pointed awestruck gazes upwards into their stern faces. More accurately so, they showcased dim pictures of underfed marines, slouching against lean-to's, trigger fingers itching to kill if only to break up the monotony of a planet with no life other than the other fifty men and women stationed in the bunker. Or the occasional space goat._

_Whatever it was, it had to look pretty damn good to a middle-aged man with a steady day job to get him to sign his life away._

_They were hard-working, bright-eyed soldiers and all shared a profound amount of respect for the Lieutenant-Commander. _

_The squad treated her like a veteran immediately upon introduction. It had taken her aback and left her with a powerful urge to retreat from them. Shepard avoided their company for the first few weeks, overwhelmed by the sudden load of admiration shoved her way. Even on Cafrim, her typical entourage consisted of one or two men and they were never consistent. She kept to her quarters during downtime, leaving them to their own devices during meals. _

_This seemed to add to her allure as an officer. She was the mysterious, distant one who fraternized little with her crew, but performed beautifully during times of action. The aloofness exacerbated the problem and heightened the intrigue. Eventually, she overcame her remoteness and forced herself not to skirt passing marines in the corridors. She offered the occasional nod, a word here and there. The brazen ones ventured an attempt at conversation. She was courteous, but tight-lipped nonetheless. Shepard rarely lasted long in even the mildest of phatic exchanges. Her responses ranged from terse to awkward and varied in their intensity. She left each conversation with an insatiable desire to stick her foot in her mouth and keep it there. She didn't speak to people. No, she threw up words on their shoes._

_The crew of fifty kept few secrets from one another and word traveled of the LC's poor communications skills. Still, the respect never wavered and no one bullied her for it. It was a calm reverence Shepard had never known, at least from the receiving end._

_Over time, she forced herself to memorize names and tidbits of information they seemed so keen on sharing with her. O'Callahan had three brothers back on Mars; Nighbert was an L3; Sorenson's father was a captain in the fifth fleet; Ghatori held the academy record for track; Bannon was born on Luna; Brahams could calculate quadruple digits mentally; Lucarelli had a soft spot for asari, and Goldberg couldn't trust anything born blue._

_They were a strong team that functioned well together. Shepard led and they followed without question, eager to impress and be impressed. The Lima traveled fast and struck even faster with Shepard aboard. In combat, she blossomed, for lack of a better word. While she emotionally hadn't matured a day, she was a whole new woman in the field. _

_No reports ever came in from Cafrim. No distress calls, progress reports. Not that she expected any, but something in her kept a candle burning for the hope that someone back there might take interest in her progress. It was absurd in hindsight, considering no one really gave a rat's ass. Gomez and Stevens, maybe. But they existed as grunts to the CO's down there. It was unlikely that they'd ever manage to patch word through or even have the means to do so. McDowell had the capacity, but she knew well enough she'd hear little from him anytime soon. It was evident during their last encounter months ago. Sometimes, the end was just the end. Turn the page, close the book, call it a day._

_Come tomorrow, open a new book and viola: chapter one. _

_Today was just another page. _

_One she wouldn't turn._

_"Sir, I can _not _emphasize enough how _bad _an idea this is," Shepard insisted, arms folded across her chest just outside the Lima's com room. She leaned against the wall, just adjacent to the sliding door._

_The 'sir' to whom she referred was a Captain Markham of MSV Lima. Markham had gradually grown accustomed to Shepard's mannerisms after some time aboard and now treated her like a competent solder. Shepard discovered that the suggestion of her reassignment of the Lima had not come from it's commanding officer, but another executive of the fleet. He'd had his reservations about the transfer, but Shepard gave him no reason to doubt her capacity in battle. _

_Markham now granted her the rare privilege of free speech in his presence… most of the time. Something she figured she'd rarely benefit from. It was never conversational, but the tactics she discussed in his presence came out lucid. It was a small step in a good direction._

_"Not my call anymore, Shepard," he drawled. Markham was also one of the more laid back in the fleet, which Shepard was shocked to discover. She had expected a terse man with an iron fist, but Markham was just perpetually low key. The eternal cowboy, minus the exaggerated accent so common in the B vids. _

_This had no bearing on his abilities as a captain. He was relaxed because he could afford to be so. Long-since established, he could sing an order and the crew would still leap to execute it._

_"It's your ship. It's always your call." Shepard's voice was stiff, unusually monotone for the occasion. They had been ashore for three hours after an earth day's run and the squad was running on empty, LC included. _

_Markham tilted his head back, staring at her down the length of his nose. "What do you suggest we do? Pile on top of each other and barricade the door with our bodies? 'Welcome aboard the MSV Lima. Now get the fuck off'."_

_Shepard knew the captain as a firm, decent man, but he always seemed to poke fun at her concern when situations grew dire. Not that these were the most pressing of moments. Well, not yet anyways. Markham was an older man with one of those faces that probably got better with age. He was handsome by common standards, but Shepard just couldn't find the interest. He had to know he was attractive. Closely-cropped chestnut hair, warm brown eyes… There was the ghost of a swagger in his step that left a trail of confidence. He'd earned it, though. With this caliber ship under his command, he damn well deserved it._

_"Show me the bodies. I'll start stacking." Shepard replied dryly. She'd discovered this thing called 'dry humor' and was gradually implementing it in more conversation. It seemed to work. Under the right conditions. She was still having trouble discerning good timing from bad._

_Lucarelli had a thing for timing, too. Shepard looked up as he turned the corner in his garrison dress, watching the man stiffen instantly in the Captain's presence. His hand shot up in a salute. "Captain Markham. Lieutenant-Commander Shepard."_

_Markham nodded and waved off Lucarelli, "At ease."_

_Shepard straightened, but kept her arms folded tightly in place as Lucarelli relaxed, eyes darting from Shepard back to the captain. Markham humored him._

_"Can we help you, son?"_

_Lucarelli had the same hang-ups with rank and order as most did coming out of the academy. There was this conditioned fear of speaking openly to superiors, as though it would shatter some natural balance. Still, the young man was getting braver every day, taking Shepard and Markham's bait when offered._

_"Just hearing a few different reports, Captain. Nighbert says we'll be stationary over Junthor for a while?" _

_Markham shifted his weight and nodded, mirroring Shepard's crossed arms. "That we will."_

_Lucarelli had that expectant look in his darkly tanned face, waiting to be fed more information that Markahm took his time giving. _

_Shepard beat him to the punch. "We're going to be boarded by a turian platoon. Hide the women and shoes."_

_Markham wheezed suddenly and coughed. Shepard arched an eyebrow at him, catching the fading glimpses of a smile disappearing behind a closed fist. Lucarelli didn't share the humor. "With all do respect, ma'am… Is that a joke?"_

_Oh, how she wished it was. Markham jumped in before Shepard could substitute her own explanation. "Afraid not. We're traveling in free space, here, but our friends upstairs decided that we're going to play diplomats for a day and let our scaly compadres perform an 'inspection'."_

_"Captain, they don't have jurisdiction to do that here. Citadel law specifically outlines our rights. We don't have to answer to another's species demands on neutral grounds, especially during-," Lucarelli rattled on. Shepard thought he sounded rather like one of those digital textbooks, narrating code A, subsection a14, etc._

_She jumped in with a sigh, hoping to turn off the prattling voice. "They're acting on Alliance terms, Lucarelli. They've been invited to board an active Alliance naval vessel and assess it. That 'it' happens to be the Lima."_

_Markham scratched the back of his neck. "Some sort of cooperative effort, a joining of forces, hand-holding… Along those lines. All I know is that I've got direct orders from Admiral Mirez to have you assemble all fancy-like once we're boarded and show them whatever they want to see. Brass also sent a 'do' and 'don't' list long enough for me to hang myself with."_

_It rubbed Shepard the wrong way. A woman steeped in the value of privacy didn't respond well to the invasion of it, even if that personal space didn't belong to her. Cafrim hadn't been an issue since she never considered anything on that planet her own. Here on the Lima, she'd carved a personal niche for herself and had taken to it. Possessive, maybe, but she suddenly felt like she had something worth protecting and didn't warm to the thought of its violation._

_"Sounds sketchy to me, sir." Lucarelli added timidly. The notion was widely accepted._

_"Don't need to tell me that. All you have to do is assemble when I give the order and answer whatever questions you're asked. And don't embarrass me." Markham pulled at his collar and looked to Shepard._

_"That goes for you, too. We've got about an hour until contact and I want you to brief your team as best you can to what we've got going on here. I'll be over the PA shortly to fill the rest of you in myself, but just… get your kids cleaned up, alright?"_

_Shepard nodded and let her hands drop to her side, saluting for propriety's sake. "Aye aye, Captain."_

_Shepard briefed her squad in the locker room, repeating details Markham had given to her prior. The Systems Alliance offered an active cruiser or frigate class vessel to inspection by turian engineers acting on behalf of the government. They were told it would be a significant gesture of goodwill to the hawkish creatures, but Shepard and her fellow marines disliked the idea. The lack of information from their own branch of intelligence did not bode well as they were forced to keep their mouths shut, bend over and take it._

_She had no idea what to expect. Some of her own resented the species more blatantly than others. Almost all of them hailed from veteran families of the First Contact, hence their speedy enrollment in the academy. Now they were going to have to stand stock-still while a slew of them perused their ship. Markham had ball-parked the number at twelve and had assured Shepard that this was only a guess. Tensions ran high and mutterings of possible outbursts whispered through the corridors._

_Still, they all suited up in off-duty dress according to their rank. Shepard obediently did the same, only settling for a tight combat uniform rather than the comfort of the other. Black, standard issue, it proudly bore the call letters of the Lima. Her weapons were polished and outfitted, despite Markham's insistence on keeping the crew as unthreatening as possible. Shepard opted to leave the fresh firearms behind in her locker, save for the pistol clasped firmly at the small of her back._

_Markham's call came soon enough and they all milled to the entry hall. Seaman and marine alike fell in line, their commanding officers sorting them by rank and service. Shepard's team stood to the rear of the navy, dark uniforms contrasting with those of the permanent crew. Shepard stood just in front of her squad, harsh face set in stone. They all knew how badly this could go. Few of them had entered into active service with interstellar relations in mind. They were soldiers, trained to defend and fight. They didn't enjoy hosting these kinds of events._

_The captain stood front and center, joined by his navigator and chief engineer. Status reports periodically came over the intercom as the crew on duty managed the coupling process. They could hear the shift of the craft as a second ship approached and locked in. There were minutes of silence as pressure adjusted and shields lowered. _

_Shepard couldn't see the rear door open, but she heard the steady clicking of alien bodies entering their ship. She forced herself not to lean forward for a better look, her eyes straining to peer further from the corner of her eye._

_She heard the rumbling of a new voice piercing the air, moving like a living creature. "Captain James W. Markham" It was demand. Not a question._

_"You're looking at him," Came the captain's smooth reply._

_"Rear Admiral Marro Nefalect of the third. This is my chief engineer, Halim Tirif."_

_Shepard couldn't see the exchange, but she heardr footsteps as voices grew louder. They appeared to be moving further into the ship, approaching the wide corridor. Finally, she saw them. _

_There were five heading up what must have been fifteen. More than she anticipated. Nefalect was a tall, black-plated turian with stark white speed paint. His pointed head nearly scraped the tip of the entryway. She'd seen a few of their kind before, but this creature was massive, even by their standards. It took little guesswork to figure out how he'd climbed the military ladder. Probably took very little effort. A second turian stood close by, a full head shorter than the admiral. He was sharply dressed in non-combat armor, wearing a heavy bandolier of instruments Shepard couldn't identify. She presumed him to be the alleged engineer, lithe with brown skin and red facial markings differing from Nefalect's._

_Markham's eyes never left the admiral, even as he led their guests further into the bulk of the ship. Officers and crew stood in rapt attention, straighter than she'd ever seen them. Her own squad was deathly silent behind her, not even the creak of a boot from shifting weight. _

_It was a parade of color and shape; each turian adorned in similar uniform, but diverse skin tones and facial paint. They were downright imposing. There was no beating around that fact. Nefalect led a well-outfitted crew and Shepard felt trapped by them. This was no ordinary bunch. These were veteran fighters with agendas. _

_"Well, this is the Lima. Alliance intelligence informed us that you're to have full access of our facilities. Whatever you need to see, my crew will show you." Markham's gaze finally drifted, flickering from his navigator to Shepard. She saw no fear there. Only slight trepidation and much more confidence. _

_Nefalect was no slouch and appeared to sense Markham's shift of attention. Shepard saw the steel gray eyes of the turian for the first time as they suddenly fixed on her, freezing the blood in her veins. Her primal instincts urged her to gather up her squad and run. It was a reaction expected when staring down a much larger predator. This was like standing off against a raptor. _

_Shepard clutched her pride and resolve, hands twitching at her sides as she forced herself not to ball them into fists. Nefalect approached with long, powerful strides and stood still mere inches from Shepard. He towered over her and she only followed him with her eyes, refusing to lean back to see him. He folded his arms behind his back as Tirif followed obediently and waited just off to the side. _

_"You are Lieutenant Commander Shepard." Again, it wasn't a question._

_If her voice cracked, she'd never forgive herself. "Sir. Yes, sir." Luckily, it didn't. It was even and confident. _

_The plates of his jaw twitched. Plates, mandibles, whatever they were, they outright moved. She'd seen it once before but hadn't a clue what to make of it. Was it out of humor? Irritation? Their faces remained so damn stiff that she just couldn't translate it. Still, those piercing eyes bore into her, like a bird of prey to its next meal._

_It was a pregnant pause. Heavily so. She knew her rank and didn't dare fill the emptiness. Finally, the turian expelled a breath and went on, deep voice rumbling like distant thunder._

_"You exposed the Second Strike?" The first question she'd heard from him since boarding._

_"Affirmative." Short, simple. Just how she wanted to keep this conversation._

_Perhaps he expected an explanation. Perhaps he expected nothing at all. Still, he regarded her so fiercely that she wondered whether he was trying to see right through her and to the wall behind. Was her gender a stumbling block for him? Could he not fathom how a lanky, pale-skinned woman could destroy anything stronger than herself? Or perhaps there was a greater issue beneath the surface. Shepard knew well enough it was the turians who benefited most from the genophage unleashed upon the krogan. They'd struggled to silence rebellion and control the population. It was understandable why some would find continuous action against the species favorable. That didn't make it right and Shepard sure as hell couldn't justify it._

_But no, this was a species of total combat. The battles had been fought and the infection continued to wage war against the once-hardy race. There was more honor to them as a whole, especially to those with higher standing in their hierarchy. Someone as established as Nefalect couldn't condone such a subversive operation._

_Lucky for her, he didn't._

_"Good work." A weight lifted as the turian's gaze lost that x-ray element. Shepard relaxed muscles she didn't even know she'd been tensing. The admiral saw it and chuckled low in his throat. She felt the expression more so than she heard it, rolling against her skin and down her spine._

_It was short-lived, but the turian's demeanor changed significantly then. Markham eased in turn, giving Shepard an unknowable look. She liked to think it was some sort of thanks or… look of relief. She'd keep guessing._

_The tour continued and eventually, they were allowed to break rank. Markham led Nefalect and Halim along with five more of their turian officers. In turn, the captain kept his navigator's company, his engineers, and Shepard. The rest of Nefalect's men dispersed throughout the ship, accompanied by designated crewmen. Shepard's own troop wound up in the engine room where she rarely ventured due to lack of interest. All the while, Nefalect and Halim took turns explaining their interest in surveying the reverse engineered technology that now allowed all human craft flight and FTL travel. The turians were far more frank than their informants in the Systems Alliance. There were no secrets anymore. Only pure curiosity and understanding of potential._

_Shepard took up the rear, heavily outranked by the rest of Markham's entourage and she knew it. _

_Halim gestured to the massive drive core, calling out over the din. "It's taken time, but we've found a way to compress the same power output into a much smaller space. It's a start, but there's still much more we can harness from these drives."_

_Nefalect hardly strained himself to be heard, his voice just naturally overcome the noise. _

_"Imagine a craft with the firepower of a standard cruiser, but the speed of a frigate. Then imagine that ship traveling virtually silent across hundreds of systems, undetected by all radar."_

_Markham shook his head. "Sounds real fancy, but there's nothing in the entire Alliance navy capable of something like that."_

_Halim cast a glance to Nefalect and nodded before continuing. "Not yet."_

_Shepard perked in interest, inching her way closer. Nefalect took quick notice of her and waved her forward, setting her uncomfortably on the spot. Apparently, the admiral found Shepard's trials on Cafrim far more impressive than he originally let on. He'd actively included her in conversation during their tour, despite her ignorance in the field of space flight. Still, Nefalect called out for her opinion and the occasional tactical perspective of various craft. She'd offered the best of her knowledge as frankly as possible. Each new response seemed to please him further, breaking down barrier after barier between the groups until conversation turned remarkably casual. "Shepard, tell me. How many sailors man the Lima?"_

_Navigatiors, engineer, general crew. Not including captain and other CO's, she had the number. Or at least something close to it. "About fifty or so, admiral."_

_Nefalect tilted his head back. Shepard felt like she was speaking to a teacher… a wizened man with a lesson at the end of the winding questions and rhetoric. "What if I were to say that it was possible for a ship just as powerful to operate with a crew of thirty?"_

_Shepard arched an eyebrow in reflex. The admiral thankfully took no offense. "I'd say it sounds too good to be true."_

_Halim shook his head. "We have the stealth systems, but that's only half of it. If we can reconstruct an Alliance core system, strip it down and apply what we've developed, we could make that craft a reality."_

_Markham appeared genuinely impressed. "So that's it? This is why the Alliance is all hush-hush about these inspections? You're splicing technology?"_

_"Essentially, yes. It's taken more time than we expected, but we've finally developed a prototype. A few more adjustments and we'll have a fully-functioning vessel."_

_"Who gets the ship?" Shepard spoke up._

_"The first will be handed over to the Systems Alliance upon completion, but our hierarchy will keep the original blueprints for further production." Halim replied pleasantly, surprising Shepard with his attitude. She expected more resentment from a species about to give away ground-breaking technology to a race it once tried to annihilate. _

_Nefalect spoke up, "It will still maintain a distinctly turian design. We've placed the CIC in the aft as opposed to center."_

_"So, I guess this means we've all got to be friendly to one another from here on?" Markham leaned back against the guard rail, relaxed as ever. Shepard could scarcely believe how far they'd come in the span of a few hours. Once, they'd stared them down, begging for the challenge. Now, the stood around in amiable conversation. It was uncanny how quickly some tables turned. Rarer so how they turned for the better._

_Nefalect laughed shortly; a sharp but earnest bark of humor. It bounced off the wide walls and echoed briefly, hovering above them like a living thing. "That is the ultimate goal, captain."_

_Shepard knew it was a leap in the right direction, but she couldn't imagine the deep-rooted animosity fading overnight. It would take time as most change did. Still, she had little trouble imagining a better future with a strong ally at the Citadel. Again, time would be their biggest opponent regarding tolerance. She couldn't see turian and man sharing any meals together for multiple, obvious reasons, but the image was hopeful._

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I sputtered and died trying to finish this. You can probably tell. TOO MANY NEW CHARACTERS. Please message me with any errors you picked up in this chapter. Remember, I have no beta and I'm a spazsaur. OI!!_ REVIEW!_


	6. Chapter 6

_**Author's Notes: **__I'm a broken record but I don't care. Thank you all for your consistence reviews. Some of you have dealt me some high praise that I don't think I've earned, but it's appreciated. Don't inflate my ego. I'm fragile._

_Expect a shift in direction and decrease in flashback frequency. Thanks to those of you who've tolerated my original characters for this long. It's my turn to give you what you want. The flashbacks were a way for me to work out a lot of questions I'd been wrestling with. They've kind of been like… streams of consciousness for me. So thanks for dealing with blurbs._

_There are a few more memories to deal with. After that, it'll be smooth sailing. Also, I have to ask a favor of you. PLEASE note where you see errors and point them out to me. I'm just REALLY a terrible self-editor and I need a new pair of eyes._

_Lastly, I'm sorry it's taken me a while to publish, but this is probably the pace I'll be working at for a while. Thank 18 academic credits and 13 hour a week job for that. I'm also going back to edit the previous five chapters, so there's a side project already._

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The krogan were hardy to a fault. The endurance alone was uncanny. There was something admirable in this tenacity, but Shepard figured there'd come a point where fighting lost its appeal and death suddenly sounded as welcome as a warm bath. These were krogan, though; tough as nails and weren't prone to laying down their lives willingly. Even when staring up the barrel of a gun, there was such fierceness in those scarleteyes that screamed defiance. It felt wrong, once, destroying these natural-born survivors. But their species was doomed to eternal combat, and every way had its share of casualties. All soldiers paid their share of the price.

Shepard was simply there to collect the dues.

They had a few minutes left until pickup and the interruption had cost them precious time. She had to make quick work of the mercenary if she was to garner anything useful from the skirmish. Falling debris and wavering beams made this difficult to accomplish in such a short period. Shepard wiped a rivulet of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of her free hand while the other held a pistol in a steel grip. She advanced as Garrus cocked his rifle, pressing the mouth of it to the side of the krogan's head. Williams mirrored the movement, shotgun poised for immediate action in case their adversary decided to expedite the inevitable. The krogan of the hour was a battlemaster; reminiscent of Wrex in a painfully obvious way. He'd sunk to his knees, armor cracked in the abdomen where dark, thick blood flowed freely to pool beneath him. A large chunk of his hump had been blown away completely, leaving a charred, pulpy mess that should have rendered him unconscious. Fortitude aside, he really should have been_dead_. But it was all there in those eyes; that insurgence coupled with pure contempt for everything that condemned them to extinction.

Shepard had to resort to an especially dark, cold place in order to stare back at them and play the reaper. Anything less and her mercy would take control, sway her to lenience. She couldn't give in, though. They didn't reciprocate the favors. They didn't bite the feeding hand. They blew the whole arm off.

"What does Saren want with Matriarch Benezia?" Shepard's weapon buzzed as it armed itself, adding extra incentive.

"Commander, please hurry! The structure will not hold!" Liara's soft cry came from behind. The asari made alliances quickly, trusting her safety and information to Shepard. It had happened hastily. Quite fast, in fact. Shepard couldn't really fathom how someone could be so trusting to complete strangers. Then again, Shepard had saved her life and offered her a viable escape. Perhaps that was all the young alien needed to dedicate herself to a cause. Shepard was still very set in her ways; quick to defend and slow to open up.

For the moment, though, she sorely wished for the blue creature to remain silent and let her do this in peace. It was hard enough without the gnawing pain in her arm and the active disintegration of their foundation.

The krogan spat on the ground, saliva mingling with blood. Hateful eyes glared back at Shepard, then to the turian and solider holding him down the promise of a swift execution.

"I don't know nothin'. Even if I did, I'd sooner fuck your mother than tell you."

Garrus prodded the furious krogan with his rifle and the creature wheezed, the sound of fluid bubbling up from within punctured lungs.

"Lie all you want. Your death will be a disgrace either way. You forfeited your honor long ago," Garrus growled at the battlemaster, his voice sending tremors of static through the air.

Williams stood firm, unwavering in the slightest. Shepard cast a glance her way in time to catch the gunnery chief's nod. Ashley spoke up.

"I'd choose my questions carefully, commander. Time's not our best friend right now."

This was undeniable. While Garrus' continuous scare tactics might have broken lesser men, the krogan kneeling before them was as good as dead with nothing to lose. Confess, betray; what could he gain from spilling secrets? All he had left was the reputation Garrus claimed he'd forsaken. The battlemaster didn't have the air of someone aware of a higher agenda. Perhaps he was a simply mercenary and nothing more. But the army of geth at his command left her to believe that there was some rank to him, _something_ worth knowing.

"What's the conduit? What does it do? Spill it or so help me, I'll shoot you in the kneecaps and you can enjoy being buried alive. You only get to check out early if you tell me _exactly _what I need to know." Shepard had to shout as another beam fell behind them, sending the doctor running forward.

Liara screamed. "Commander, _please_!"

Shepard put up that wall again to block the better half of her conscience out. There was time. The main support pillar still stood, though cracks writhed up it like snakes. A few minutes and it'd be time to pack their things and high-tail it out of there. Until then, there were leads to investigate and a life to end.

The modest duty of a military woman-turned-Spectre.

Shepard caught Garrus' gaze and waited for the tell. His mandibles twitched, which she'd come to assume meant he was anxious, expectant. She hadn't clarified the translation with Garrus, mostly because that also appeared to be an absurd conversation scenario. Another problem was her consistent inability to initiate conversation with him.

The krogan heaved a few more times and a shiver ran down Shepard's spine. It was awfully close to the death rattle, harbinger to the end. She could almost see the drive fade out of him as he hunched further, the arm clasping his gut going limp. The exposed tissue of his back had stopped seeing the blood. The veins no longer pulsed; muscle and mass dying. Everything seemed to pour out the gap in his front in a steady river, taking the life with it.

"He doesn't… tell us. Why should he? Not our… problem," That grumble became a croak as words began to fail.

Shepard felt the spark of anger. Her face furrowed in fury. "He's going to annihilate all life in this galaxy. How is that _not _your problem"

The krogan shifted forward with a grunt. Garrus sidestepped quickly, barrel pointed between the battlemaster's eyes. Ruby irises crossed to focus on the barrel before they abandoned the pursuit, settling on Shepard instead. The wide, reptilian mouth curved upwards into an empty grin.

"My people... we are already _dead_,"

Shepard was suddenly reeling backwards. The krogan tackled her, arms failing; clawing at her body as phantom strength took hold of the alien and granted it immeasurable power. Her joints screamed in protest, the nicks and bruises reminding her completely of just how many times she'd scraped by death today. There were shouts mixed within the roar of a collapsing foundation. She writhed, trying to get her pistol out from under the bulk of the krogan. There was just so much _weight_. Thick hands found her throat and strangled her, crushing the trachea beneath massive fingers. Her vision suddenly fogged and the need to arm herself overcame all others. She pulled at her pistol and kept pulling until it slipped against the coarse covering of her armor and pushed the mouth of it between its eyes, hard enough to bruise. Those red eyes didn't focus. She couldn't be sure if the krogan even saw her anymore. Irrelevant by now, though. She was on the verge of losing consciousness. Fighting to remain awake conflicted with the command to pull the trigger.

Two shots fired, then. One of them came from her own hand, the kickback sending her hand flying to her own face thanks to the close range. The other came from the side. The battlemaster slackened above her, the eyes no longer seeing. The rolled back up as the same dark blood trickled out its mouth and onto Shepard's chest before the whole head collapsed on her.

She lay there, panting, relearning how to breathe. Suddenly, the weight was gone and Garrus was there, longer fingers outstretched before her. They beckoned, the rope dangling far above Hell, calling to the repentant and promising a chance to do right. She reached with her entire being, fingers straining to brush redemption.

His hand closed around hers and pulled her up; all of her. Shepard simply lay there and let herself be lifted, though she tried to assist him. He had her upright faster, smoother. All at once, the world was spinning. Lack of oxygen, shock, whatever. She gasped for air while Garrus clasped her to him, steadying her as the quake struck.

Everything shattered, then. Walls caved in and the boulders held at bay by the massive dome covering showered down upon them. Shepard didn't know when she reflex kicked in, but all of a sudden, she was running. Just before her, Williams. Garrus, though? There was a pressure at her back. A hand? Maybe just the force of expelled air behind them as a passageway sealed, blocked off by another collapsing hunk of rock. Liara, though. There was no Liara.

Daylight ahead and the screams of Normandy's engine nearby. Someone was still missing.

Shepard skidded to a halt, finding resistance in Garrus as he urged her to keep moving forward. Wordlessly, she pushed passed his extended hand, searching for sight of the newly acquired doctor. The turian screamed something, but it didn't register. Joker's voice blared directly into her ear, but it was all static to the brain that could think of nothing but getting the last of them out alive.

She wasn't far off, only straggling a little ways back. There was no time for gentility as she forced the asari onward, pulling her along and propelling her forward until Liara found her own momentum. Eventually, she disappeared around the corner and towards the opening.

Shepard nearly collided with Garrus who hadn't moved from the spot she'd left him in, just above the last set of stairs. Now the words seemed to make sense. Urging shouts… His hand waved her forward in slow motion. That same surreal stillness stole over everything as her heart hammered against her chest, setting a beat.

It was a split-second sensation that shattered into chaos as a mighty rain of rock and steel collapsed, forcing Shepard to retrieve her thoughts and bolt out of there.

The light beckoned from the end of the dimness, promising a long-needed respite from the pain and exhaustion. But first, there would be only hell.

It came in the form of a white hot blast as she burst out of mouth of the tunnel. It pushed against her with all the force of an oncoming locomotive. Her armor felt as though it would melt, or at least soft-boil her. In propelled them onward, shooting them out into the open not unlike bullets. It knocked the breath out of Shepard as she slammed forward into the guard rail, eyes shrinking under the sunlight. There was the safety of the surface, but everything still shook and she could barely tell what she was looking at. Finally, the Normandy came into focus as it hovered close by, loading cable latching onto the Mako from a distance. Two figures were clamoring to enter; one remarkably blue.

Shepard had fulfilled her duties. She'd brought them to safety of the Normandy's grasp. Something wasn't clicking. There should have been more. Four of them altogether. There needed to be a third. Nevermind the last. Shepard could make do as long as her charges survived.

The world slipped up and she was suddenly very close to the walking panels. She could count the number of holes in each plate of grating. The silver metal glimmered under the warm caress of the brilliant, distant star. Brighter still were the small rivers of red flowing away from her. It was a nice view. A little bumpy, but pleasant. Oh, so pleasant.

Then it hurt. Everything burned and cracked and ached and her feet didn't touch the floor. Perhaps she simply couldn't feel them anymore. There was a terrible pressure round her front, pressing against battered flesh. Once her eyes focused, she saw Garrus. The third piece of the puzzle was not where he should be. She had to correct him. Her arm obeyed as her hand reached out to the Mako, but the finger didn't point very well. It was sadly limp despite her attempt.

"Go, Garrus. Get out of here!" But the turian looked at her like she'd just uttered complete jibberish. It was _his_ hand pressing into her sore gut. It was _his_ plated chest that pressed against her burning back. It was _his _legs that urged her to move as she ran with him, halfway tucked under his arm.

"Hang on, Shepard!" Garrus shouted far too close to her ear, the vibrations tickling their way down her neck and along her jaw line. He followed his orders, holding onto whatever limbs in her reach. The effort was fruitless no matter what since she could barely keep her head upright. It was Garrus and Garrus alone who prevented her from collapsing into a mound of exhausted muscle and torn skin. Guns secure and helmet strapped tight, she felt like baggage.

Everything descended into this taciturn abyss, numb and immobile. Shepard withdrew back into her mind long enough to see things from the rear. She was maneuvering within a thick haze. Words were senseless and the actions were even more preposterous.

Long fingers shifted to her shoulders and waist as the sounds of pandemonium died down and the world sank below them. The two Shepards dueled for jurisdiction of the body. One was content to float and observe. The other shouted and kicked and hollered for attention, demanding to understand what could have thrown her into this unintelligible state. It was terrifying, not knowing. Every fiber of that coherent Shepard willed for control to return and wounds to mend.

They didn't and the Shepard in command simply stared up at the painted face. When did she lie down? Gravity pulled at a whole new angle now. Something warm supported her back, keeping her head from lolling. A soothing cradle, balm to the weary and solace for the battle torn. In that moment, Shepard was at most sentient, but little more. She became a vessel for emotion and that alone, all experience and sensation without the weight and diagnostic nagging of the logical mind. Every filament of her existence basked in the succor of being held and accepting support without plaint. Shepard yearned to linger, absorbing pure contact as it filled aching fissures languidly. It was like relearning how to feel, how to speak, how to walk. It saturated her to the marrow and overflowed, rising to swallow up her heart. Nothing but pulsing need now, begging to feel after years of hibernation, the staggering hunger to replace the frigid emptiness that promised to turn her inside out until there was nothing human left.

Here reigned peace. It sighed promises of more. There was no reason for criticism, even in the arms of someone, something so foreign and unaware of the cracks and flaws beneath the beguiling exterior.

She saw twin skies of blue float on before her eyes rolled back into darkness.

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_Captain Markham rarely exhibit foul humor. His manner had taken a turn for the worst, dour and stand-offish at best. The crew knew to steer clear at his worst. Shepard had no choice in the matter. Raging or sullen, the discussion could not be avoided. She wished otherwise._

_After what seemed like a full hour, Markham leaned forward in his chair, leathery hands resting against his knees. _

_"I want it known that I had no say in this arrangement and I'm sure as fuck not happy about it." The edge in his voice thin as a razor's, but present regardless._

_"I gathered as much, sir," Shepard answered numbly._

_The captain fell back into another lapse, lips pursed tight as he left Shepard to sit uncomfortable. He found himself again and continued._

_"It's a damn waste. It ain't just. It's… It's fucking bureaucracy."_

_Markham was livid and fighting a losing battle to hide it. There was little Shepard could say to take the edge off his rage. She was working through her own resentment over the reassignment. The first day had been spent in broody silence, followed by the inevitable anger. She'd kept herself from crew when it'd hit, expelling her fury in the locker room after hours. Thick steel walls insulated her screams and shouts; even the select blows she dealt to unsuspecting storage bins. Everything she'd trained for had fizzled into the stark realization that life was, in fact, cruel. After everything, every obstacle and triumph, there was only misery._

_Shepard would likely not see the Lima again._

_They'd all been selected. Every man and woman serving under her had been swept up by the indiscriminate hand of the Alliance military. They were to depart the Lima permanently to be stationed on yet another lifeless planet._

_ Her team had not been subjected to anything remotely so humdrum and completely lacking stimulation. Some would make the best of it; there were optimists aplenty under her command, but the rest would immediately scent the death sentence of a career. That was perhaps one of the biggest factors in Shepard's celebrity; the fact that she'd done the impossible. She up and left when she should have been stuck to rot. Shepard had been far too lucky once before and the universe in all its infinite odds just wasn't that merciful. She couldn't rely on the same gig twice. _

_"That's life, though. Isn't it?" Shepard ventured, knowing quite while just how campy that sounded._

_Markham agreed with a humorless snort. _

_"Don't go philosophical on me, Shepard. You're a fuckin' soldier. You don't get to define your life like some average dumb ass."_

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She arched up sharply, but Garrus' hands held her in a vice-like grip that kept her pinned to the hard length of his body. Colors swam in nauseating patterns when she tried to open her eyes. Her stomach turned and she shut them tight as she withdrew back into the sound of her ragged breathing. Finally, she could identify the voices. Liara's broke through first, sweet and plain amidst the chaos.

"We must get her to your facilities!"

Williams' voice was a welcome comfort; human and strong, "Then get your ass up that hatch!"

The low rumble of Garrus was stronger than she'd ever felt. Even through the fog of pain, she experienced it all. It rolled over her, a neutral comfort as it worked its way to the very marrow of her bones.

"Get Dr. Chakwas!"

Everything tilted sideways. She suddenly hung in Garrus' arms, nervous as the comfort of his weight disappeared. There were new hands reaching for her and she simply wanted to clasp Garrus and remain in certainty. There was confidence in his protection; safety against him. She couldn't see the body attempting to pass her up through the patch. There was a cacophony of voices; harsh, startling cries that made her jaw clench and brow furrow.

The darkness fell over her like a cool blanket. There was calm in the nothing.

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_She'd expected more. Violent outbursts, staunch refusals, a grand rebellion to overthrow the masterminds who chose to craft their doom. Instead, eyes glazed over and confusion muddled minds, mouths twisting to put together sentences. Shepard would have welcomed outrage with open arms. Instead, she stared on incredulous as they milled about. You'd think they'd just heard shore leave had been delayed a day. No more. No less._

_"Commander, this just doesn't make sense. We do our part, get the job done, and then end up on some shitty-ass planet anyway just because some small timers want to see how the pros get it done?" Lucarelli spoke up, sitting straight as a board._

_"Something like that." Shepard muttered back, hearing voices, but registering little. Her eyes were busy drifting across the floor._

_"Oh, this is just bullshit." Nightbert grumbled. Or was that Brahams?_

_"Hey, not like we're going to have to make ourselves home or anything. Commander said this was just a two week engagement, right? Just count down the days until it's done?" _

_No, _that _was Brahams._

_"This is exactly why I enrolled in the academy; to skip out on this shit. Damn waste of tuition if this is what it all comes down to."_

_"I hear if you die, they cancel your student loans."_

_"Naw. Urban myth. Next of kin inherits your debt."_

_"Oh, that's a fucking _load._ They can't do that. No way. That's just not kosher."_

_"This is why you read the fine text before you get going on those signatures. It's always some sub-section theta that comes back to bite you in the balls."_

_The conversation rattled on for what seemed an eternity. Voice after voice mingled and melded into a mutant blob of vibration and nonsense as everything sank into cold, empty acceptance. This was the sound of certainty. The seal of her demise. _

_The end of a dream._

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Bright lights and the smell of disinfectant greeted her as the cruel hand of consciousness pulled away the soft blanket of ignorance.

Then her entire body burst into unseen flames. Muscles screamed in protest as rendered flesh send knives through her veins as a scream died in her throat. Each foreign voice scraped at her eardrums and threatened to deafen her permanently. Her eyes shot opened and closed just as quickly as the glaring white burned her retinas and shot liquid pain straight through her skull. This seemed like one of those appropriate times to cry, but Shepard wasn't sure she had tear ducts anymore. Evolution should have taken care of any unnecessary organs. There was simply no need for them anymore. Shepard figured her body didn't know how to perform the function anymore. It didn't help that emotion rarely pushed her into anything so overt.

Someone was trying to pull her arm from its socket and she didn't dare look to see who. For all she knew, she'd bypassed the Normandy and ended up in Saren's hands, experiencing first hand a torture so simply brutal.

The pain roared up, gathering and growing like a tidal wave meters above her head. Heat accumulated and she was writhing to escape it, fearing the inevitable crash of infinite agony and blindness. _This _was helplessness. This was stark oblivion. Perhaps this was what it was like to be a child, newborn. Cold and sightless and alien in every way. Pain from sudden consciousness, from being thrust into a cage of flesh, trapped in a body with a mind too large to contain it.

When the shadow grew darker and the agony could go no higher, it all came tumbling down, careening into the poor shell of a body too spent and broken to brace for it and greet it smiling.

And in that moment, she wished for nothing more than to pass away quietly.

But there were more cards to deal. More rules to break and fates to tempt.

Silence kept the mortal coil together, chaining her to unconsciousness before death could claim a victory.

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This is sloppy and I'm sorry, but school had me boned and there was NO WAY I was going to get it out unless I just fucking pushed it. I would have liked more time, but I'd already scrapped the second have and there was little more I could do in my state of mind. This is getting harder, but the passion is still there. Bear with me. And thank you for all your kind words.


	7. Chapter 7

_**Author's Notes**__: Chapter six has errors I can't fix. No, this isn't a cop out. I'm serious. There are a bunch of spacing and punctuation issues that just don't exist in the hard copy. For some reason, they get weird when I upload them to this site. I'll try something else later._

_And WOW, I wasn't sure I was going to get this done, but here it is. Yes, it moves slowly. I keep telling you kids this and you've gotta understand how serious I am. Sorry about the flashbacks and how they don't… die. I've got like, TWO MORE planned, but after that… not so much. I'll make them worthwhile. DON'T LOOK AT ME._

_A friend of mine made it clear to me that I am relying on clichés. This makes me sad and I will try to do better._

_Same deal with typos. I did a quick scan, but I'm sure there are plenty more. _

_Had to do a little bit of research for this one. Sorry to all you pre-med kids. _

_Feedback is vital. I need it to survive._

_BIOWARE COPYRIGHT STARTS NOW!_

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Layer by layer, the weight lifted. The crushing force that suppressed thought and motion waned, wavered, and slowly gave way, letting light pierce through the miasma of incapacitation. Shepard felt cocooned, surrounded by a tight film that kept her rigid, despite her inability to tense any muscle. She could feel that very casing cracking with each passing thought. Ideas sharpened and focused, objects in a viewfinder, as stray pieces returned.

Light seared through her eyelids. They were no match for the oppressive, fluorescent sun above. She could taste plastic- no, not quite. Something synthetic, yes, and bitter. One by one, each physical sensor awakened.

Her skin tingled as though legions of ants were marching across every square inch. She became aware of each hair, each follicle, the tiniest sore and wound. It felt foreign at first, until it all fell back into place and she remembered the comfortable constriction of her cage of flesh.

There was a notable absence of distinct smell, but it was all subtly clean and sterile. Everything felt close, pressing. She could feel the humid heat of her breath blowing back at her, a harsh contrast to the chill in her bones.

Noise came. Soft, steady clicks. There was a constant rush of air- her own? It sounded strange and distant, far more mechanical. Voices, then. A discourse of pitch and tone. It was jumbled at first. No names came to mind. Not even faces. There were thoughts, imprints and memories of people she'd known before.

They drifted in and out, bits and pieces. Like broken transmissions disjointed by the vastness of space.

"… Not sure how long…" Soft and hazy, but a suggestion of elegance.

"No time… for..." Adamant and off-putting, steeped in courage.

"But… ruptured a…" Wisdom punctuated by the strength of conviction.

"…Now?" Exotic and familiar all at once, wound into a fierce contender.

Shepard needed to come back. There was a world revolving beneath her and she'd be left behind if she didn't come to and find her footing. Her eyes opened and she could hear the tiny muscles of her eye twisting, recoiling as pupils shrank to pinpoints underneath the harsh surgical lamp. Gradually, they adjusted and shapes emerged from the mess of color. Still no faces, but it all seemed to zoom towards her. There was a transparent mask covering her nose and mouth, the boundary that kept stale breath from escaping.

The floodgates opened and all sense engulfed her, amplified. Pain. Awareness of pain. Those voices were no long mild interruptions, but individual nails driving into her skull. Breath no longer fulfilled her; it shredded tissue and set nerves aflame with pain. Every gulp of oxygen seemed like the last, bringing with it such agony that she truly wished she wouldn't need a next.

Dr. Chakwas sounded louder and harsher than she'd ever known, a screeching commotion.

"No, it's not a pneumothorax and I don't hear any particular muffling around the heart. The thoracic wall shifts to the right as she inhales. There. Do you see that? Wait… Damn it. Flail chest. Chief Williams, fetch Richards and Mallon from the mess and keep haste in mind. I suspect we'll be operating within the next ten minutes."

The rapid shuffling of boots sounded like a stampede of elcoor, crushing her underfoot. The mask was gone and it its place, a gloved hand and cold pressure of a metallic bar. She saw nothing, tasted nothing, knew nothing other than the sense of crumbling as her body caved in.

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_"You've got to be fucking kidding me," Nighbert blurted out as the marines filed out of the dropship. Nightbert was a master at succinctly capturing shared sentiments in rich, effective ways. There was a certain something in the way he said 'fuck' that just made it ten times as powerful. _

_Shepard agreed wholeheartedly._

_At the time of their briefing, she had the eight of them believing that there was a slim, slippery sliver of hope that they'd be there for a mere two weeks. Shepard knew it to be a lofty idea meant for little more than a boost of morale, but she'd spent so much time wanting it to be true that she'd almost taught herself to believe her own lie. It didn't take long for confirmation to filter through ranks and crush hopes. The reassignment, as far as they knew, was permanent. Or at least the Alliance military showed little inclination to reopen the topic for discussion. They'd be summoned when they were remembered or when someone realized just what sort of mistake had been made. _

_Until then, they were set to live out a dull sentence on a grey, lifeless world. The mission outlines were near identical to the one's she'd come to know on Cafrim with varying degrees of difficulty. In summary, she'd be doing the same shit again and again with increased tedium. Shepard had in no way come to terms with the outcome and did little to curb her crew's growing indignation. Let them snap at the sodding stationed sons of bitches. Hell if she was going to try and placate a highly-skilled platoon when they had every right to be outraged. Call it passive aggression; call it irresponsibility as a leader or role-model. Shepard just didn't want to hear anyone call her irrational. She had a very special bullet set aside for the unlucky asshole set on belittling her rage. _

_"Maybe… maybe there's a bright side to all of this. Y'know, when everything goes to shit and then there's that epiphany and… you're all, like, a better person afterwards?" Ghatori mumbled with feigned enthusiasm, hauling a crate of munitions._

_Sorenson trudged down the ramp, falling in line with Shepard and the others with nylon bags balanced precariously on her shoulders. They fell in a heap, summoning up the dust and earning a reproachful look from Ghatori. Shepard couldn't find an ounce of concern in Sorenson's face as she stretched and placed her hands on her hips._

_"It's like finding a pile of shit on the ground. You take it home and polish it. You make it smell nice, put it under some glass, call it art…" _

_Ghatori's lip curled in mild disgust and Shepard's twisted into a trace of a grin. Sorenson turned to face them both, close-cropped blond hair laying flat with sweat. She wiped the back of her bare hand across her face and continued._

_"But in the end? It's still a God damn pile of shit."_

_Sorenson recollected her burden and deposited it onto a blue tarp they had laid out. They'd been granted the small courtesy of a pick-up service and were currently awaiting it. While the Lima remained blissfully in orbit, the dropship delivered the damned to their final resting place with enough supplies to keep them satisfied for as long as was needed. _

_Adding insult to injury, their contact was late and Shepard was not inclined to forgive. Not today._

_"Bannon! Brahams!" Shepard called over her shoulder and they hustled towards her, leaving their crates behind as they stood before at attention. Shepard waved them off and pointed across the crater._

_"You two stand guard. Alert me as soon as you see something moving on that horizon."_

_They both muttered an affirmative in unison and trooped off obediently, taking position. The sky was a bland shade of brownish gray, the sun a pale orb of burning gas struggling to pierce through the thick of the atmosphere. The brown-gray had a gradient fade into black as the atmosphere thinned, offering glimpses of space. The terrain ahead was mostly flat, littered with deep bowls of earth and sparse patches of scrub. They had landed in a natural shell, mountain ranges on all sides. Steep, reddish ranges served as the walls of their new prison. Supposedly, the encampment lay beyond. To the naked eye, there was nothing but wasteland._

_Sand was already starting to choke the joints of her armor. It made an annoying, crunching sound when she shifted her weight. It wasn't something that would typically grate on her, but this was one of those days. Her helmet beeped at her from her grasp. She'd removed it to try and air out a little bit, but the dry, hot breeze did nothing but bake her further. Shepard replaced the helmet and opened the communication link. Helmsman Monte waved back._

_"Shepard, Markham wants to know if you've met with the landing party. We've got orders to high-tail it out of here and there's a-"_

_"-Much more pressing appointment, I'm sure," Shepard snapped back, earning an awkward pause from the other end. _

_Monte recovered and continued, radio static disguising his surprise. "Sorry, L.C. Markham made it perfectly clear that we're not going anywhere until you've made contact."_

_Shepard found some faint comfort in Markham's tenacity, but it did little to relieve the rest of her indignation. It was a final courtesy and she'd silently thank the captain for it. There was little else she could do._

_"There's been no word from-", Shepard paused as Bannon hailed from the base of the slope._

_"L.C.! Two Alliance rovers inbound from the northeast. Just a couple klicks out."_

_Shepard squinted through a sudden gust of hot air and dust, holding her breath as it passed. Sure enough, there were two small craft headed straight for them, noticeably lacking in armaments. Her throat tightened as the last few shreds blew away in the last gust. They'd shown up. Now the Lima had no reason to reclaim them. Their welcome party was fifteen minutes late and they still had to report for duty. Obligation alone compelled her to radio back._

_"They're en route. You're good to go."_

_She could hear Monte muttering something, but couldn't make it out. He finally came through clear. "Roger that, Shepard. We're recalling the dropship."_

_Sure enough, the drive core roared to life and conjured up a fresh batch of dirt clouds. Monte called back. _

_"Hang on, ma'am. Captain Markham wants a word."_

_She didn't respond; just waited quietly for whatever parting words he'd dug up for her. The last time she'd done one of these hadn't been nearly so melancholy._

_"Shepard," Markham waved in, "if these sons of bitches give you any trouble down there, you give it right back."_

_"Sir, I don't think that's the sort of advice brass would want to hear coming out of your mouth." Shepard sighed, wishing for the will to chide back. Humor evaded her. _

_"Fuck brass. I give them a piece of my mind and I get the finger. I'll do what I can to get you lot out of this, but there're no promises attached. Just do your thing down there and don't let them get you to thinkin' you're anything less than what you are. All of you."_

_No words came to her, but she nodded. It was pointless thanks to the lack of a visual, but Markham knew her well enough to know that silence meant she'd taken heed. _

_"You're a damn fine soldier, Shepard."_

_Her mouth was unbearably dry. It took a few tries before words would come. _

_"Roger that."_

_Silence._

_"Affirmative, L.C. Lima, out."_

_The transmission cut as the sound of the dropship's engines faded and grinding rocks replaced it. The rest of the unit had taken up a formation before her. She turned to see the two rovers come to a screeching halt and a group of seven men piled out, led by a dark-haired, well-muscled man. Her eyes went straight to his shoulder, zeroing in on the two chevrons marking his rank. The solider came to a halt and snapped into a salute, his crew following suit behind him. Shepard mirrored the motion deftly, eyes bearing into the man across from her and wanted very badly to read his mind. She wanted to pull thoughts out like strings and hang them for all to see. She wanted a reason to call shenanigans and get the fuck off this rock. _

_"Lieutenant-Commander Shepard?" The man fell at ease after Shepard, voice brimming with genuine curiosity._

_"And you are?" She offered little in the way of welcome._

_"Corporal Toombs, ma'am. We apologize for the delay. We ran into a sand storm coming over the East Ridge. It gets pretty rough this late in the day, but I'm sure you'll find that out for yourself soon enough." He smiled as though it would be pleasant when Shepard could only imagine an arid, dusty Hell._

_"I'm sure…" She muttered, waving on the rest of her squad as they commenced the introductions. _

_She withdrew, letting her own thoughts drown out the sound of insignificant chatter as she followed the horizon line across the dull, desert wasteland. It was one of those nightmares where you wake up, the last person alive on earth, staring into eternity without a real way to escape. The future was empty and boring with one certainty:_

_Akuze was a desolate bastard of a planet._

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Shepard came to in a remarkable state of clarity. The confusion that had disabled her reasoning earlier disappeared and left her brutally aware of her condition. She was flat on her back, surrounded by beeping monitors. A respirator lay dormant just off to the side. The oxygen mask had returned, but the influx of air no longer caused her the same pain as before. She felt as though someone had delivered a solid, flying kick to her chest, but her lungs no longer burned with each intake of breath. There was definite soreness, but each organ seemed to be functioning normally. There were no internal alarms alerting her to immediate danger. All the parts seemed to be in the right place – just battered.

She was in the medical bay and appeared alone, for the moment. Senses told her otherwise. She turned her head to the side, plastic creaking as she shifted. There was a body reclining against the adjacent table. Tall. Silent.

_Alenko_, she thought, reminiscing. The last time she'd awoken to the familiar presence of human comrades and an ever-confident Dr. Chakwas. This time, however, the reception just wasn't the same.

It wasn't Kaiden, for one. Nor was it Dr. Chakwas.

"What..?" Shepard croaked, shocked by her own hoarseness. She sounded as though she'd just swallowed a handful of broken glass and it'd done a number on her throat. She could feel a coughing fit rising as her lungs spasmed.

It was Garrus.

The turian was at her side and she hadn't even seen him move. All of a sudden, there was a set of talons removing the slipping mask and gently urging her head back into its original position. Her eyes watered, blurring him for a moment.

"Easy, Shepard," his voice ran across her skin and down to her fingertips. The cautious pressure of his hand vanished as he reached across the wall. She heard the soft click of the intercom.

Shepard reached for him, unnerved by the sight of the IV tube disappearing into her arm. She fell just short of him, but the motion alone caught his attention.

"What… what happened?" She had to whisper to keep the words from cracking, not quite confident in her strength yet.

He obliged her, his eyes trained on her face rather than the complex series of tubes strewn across her figure. Shepard would have to thank him for that later, since she rather felt like some miracle of science considering all the gadgetry she was connected to at the present.

"You broke a few ribs when the krogan tackled you. Your hardsuit managed to keep everything in place, but there were… complications once it was removed."

"Guess it's… pointless to ask about… that bullet there, yeah?" Shepard asked dumbly, gesturing to nothing in particular. It was another one of those miserable attempts at humor that really didn't benefit from her timing.

Garrus let it pass, thankfully, allowing her to maintain some scrap of dignity.

"I'm sorry I'm not Dr. Chakwas. She'd been standing watch for hours and I offered to relieve her. She has the answers I'm sorely lacking."

A small array of white machines surrounded her, each covered in dials and meters with numbers she couldn't make heads or tails of. Their functions escaped her and frankly, she didn't care. No other beds were occupied, relieving some of the worry she'd harbored for the rest of her squad. Judging by the relative emptiness of the medical bay, the operation had been something of a success. Casualties typically meant failure in her book and grave injuries were blights on victories. However, Shepard seemed to be the worse off, which was an excellent sign according to her warped logic. She was the responsible party here; if anyone had to take a hit, it was Shepard. That was the commander's duty.

There was this ridiculous frame of mind most soldiers fell into. It was an expectation of death, the belief that the lowest of rank existed as cannon fodder and were the first to fall in the fray. They surrendered to this belief, expecting to die years before their superiors. Shepard viewed things differently these days. A good leader didn't need a large platoon of sacrificial lambs. An apt commander could utilize a handful and keep them alive, even if that meant taking the bulk of the hits. With a large group of soldiers running about, uninformed, chances were high that those on the front line would be down and out instantly. Marines weren't meat shields; she'd learned this during her time at the bottom of the barrel. They were trained to fight and survive, but these higher-ups, fresh from their academies looked upon them as lesser beings, expendable bits and pieces meant to protect the ranking officers. Perhaps Shepard was backwards in the sense that she assumed that if the commanding officer took the flack, it wasn't as devastating. As long as she could control the damage and direct it, she kept the upper hand. It just hurt like a bitch sometimes.

"How long have I been unconscious?" She resumed, realizing she'd left Garrus in silence for what felt like whole minutes. Shepard had to hurry before things fell right back into that all-too familiar awkward pauses.

Garrus was quick to respond, almost as though he was trying to chase away the same pause.

"About ten hours"

"You're shitting me" Shepard blurted, trying to wrap her mind around a lost day. Her stomach lurched.

Garrus leaned against the hard, vacant bed and folded his arms across his heavily-plated chest. "I'm afraid not. Your navigator's done a standup job at keeping the Council occupied. We've been getting hourly transmissions from the Citadel. They're very eager to hear what you have to say. Thanks to Pressley, they don't know why you've been… tight-lipped about the outcome."

Another wave of nausea forced her to close her eyes as the walls started to waver. When she opened them, the world steadied. "Sure as shit they're suspicious. Help me get to the com room."

Shepard began to sit up and it was like running into a wall. She'd either put on a good fifty pounds directly to the chest, or there was an invisible force field keeping her down. Garrus faltered, hands wavering as though he was seriously considering pushing her back down. Shepard realized soon enough that it was pointless. Either way, she couldn't get herself upright.

"Shepard, don't-"

"Commander, I do hope you're not seriously considering walking out of my ward," Dr. Chakwas appeared, heralded by the soft hiss of the door.

"I'm in one piece, right? That's good enough for me and the Council." Shepard's voice cracked as something struck a nerve and sent her flat on her back once more. Protesting was gradually losing its appeal. "I mean… I'm getting good at this… unconscious recovery… business."

"The last time you lost consciousness, your brain shut down in order to defend itself from a devastating flood of alien data. This time, your ten hour nap was completely drug-induced and I assure you, painkillers and anesthesia tend to do a number on rational thought. And motor functions. This explains why you're drooling."

Shepard reached for her face, doubting the doctor's words but self-conscious enough to test them. One pale hand snaked out from under the sheer hospital coverlet and found her face, coming away with saliva. Whatever blood not occupied mending rent flesh rushed to her cheeks as she sank as deep into the hard bed as she could. Garrus had found something very interesting in one of the buzzing meters and cast his eyes elsewhere. Regardless, she was humbled into silence, relinquishing herself to Dr. Chakwas' authority.

"I'd like you stay under observation for a few more hours before you go gallivanting around the galaxy again. You've endured considerable internal trauma and I can only stuff a body so full of medi-gel." Dr. Chakwas busied herself with measurements and briefly shone a penlight into both of her eyes, forcing Shepard to blink.

Garrus took the opportunity to excuse himself. "I'll be in the cargo bay when you're ready, Commander."

Shepard held still as Dr. Chakwas carefully removed the IV from her arm. "Keep an eye on Dr. T'soni, will you? Let me know if she sprouts fangs or something. Y'know, _mauls_ somebody."

Garrus blinked at her, and then looked to the doctor, "Was that Shepard or the medication?"

Shepard opened her mouth to complain, thoroughly convinced that she had every right to suspect the worst of blue creatures recovered from ancient wreckage. Dr. Chakwas' voice overpowered hers as she reassured Garrus and waved him out.

"A little bit of both, I'm afraid."

There was something mildly amusing about be usurped by Dr. Chakwas, but she was just light headed enough to let it go and find only humor in it. Garrus bowed his head curtly and walked out the door, feet clicking with every step. When the door hissed shut, the doctor sighed and adjusted Shepard's position, allowing her to sit up. The older woman finally took her place at the foot of the bed, folding her arms firmly across her chest as she arched a short, graying eyebrow at Shepard. She mirrored the expression, waiting for… whatever she was due.

"I'm going to explain a few things to you, Commander, and you really should pay close attention. First of all, be aware of the fact that you're more adhesive than flesh right now. You shattered four ribs, pierced your right lung, and most likely bruised your trachea. A few solid inches of Aldrin brand plating kept your chest cavity from caving in and that is probably the _only _reason you are alive right now. I'm good at what I do, Shepard, but I can't bring the dead back to life. You nearly pushed me to try."

Shepard turned the information over a few times, oddly calm at the diagnosis. "So you cracked my chest open and put me back together. Nicely done."

Dr. Chakwas snorted, scaring Shepard into silence. Such noises just didn't come from someone as refined as the doctor. Especially a British doctor. It just didn't work that way.

"Cracked?! I cut you open and you virtually fell apart under the scalpel! There was no point in breaking anything else; you were already in pieces. On the plus side, it gave me easy access to that lung- otherwise, it was an outright mess."

Shepard's face furrowed in confusion, aware of the gravity, but unsure of how much of the blame she could truly accept. "I'll be sure to… sustain more _convenient_ injuries next time?

The doctor frowned bitterly, blatantly unamused, "I'd prefer it if you avoided them altogether."

Eager to move on, Shepard tested her own capabilities and carefully folded unsteady arms across her chest, slowly resting their weight on the recently-battered ribcage. Dr. Chakwas' lips pursed in reproach and Shepard retracted her limbs like a scolded child, returning them to her sides.

"I'll make every effort. Anything else I should know?"

The British woman softened minutely, cocking her head to the side as she ran a gloved hand along the length of her jaw and through a stray lock of deep gray hair.

"Well, I supposed you might like you know that our new turian ally has assumed a rather protective role over you."

That didn't settle quite well. "How exactly-"

"He arrived about an hour after surgery, insisting on standing watch with me. Not much it would have done him. I'm capable handling one reckless patient. He'd no medical training, so I couldn't quite comprehend his insistence on helping. Either way, he seemed rather stable and I eventually ventured out, leaving him with you- and do forgive me if I was out of place. In any case, he made it clear that he was alright on his own, standing watch. Sure enough, he alerted me to changes in your status, kept me very well-informed. He gave me plenty of time to examine the asari doctor and… well, I could find nothing to fault him for. He was quite the body guard."

"Garrus said he'd just relieved you a few hours ago." Shepard began slowly as the truth dawned on her.

Dr. Chakwas shook her head, "Not at all. I hadn't stood watch over you solo in nearly seven hours."

A cold hand wrenched Shepard's gut and left her to deal with a multitude of sentiments. There was confusion first. The motivation for any such action eluded her and Garrus' reasoning was ever a mystery. They'd shared a few companionable moments down on Therum, but nothing transpired down there that would explain the kind of concern that would turn him into her watch dog. There was an inkling of gratitude, mildly flattered by his concern and warmed by the idea of a crew member considering her well-being without an ulterior motive of personal gain. Then again, this was a turian. She knew they were dream soldiers, creatures of military might and unshakable discipline, but were they so unwavering in their dedication to their commanding officers? Did the same respect apply to the leaders outside their species? Either way, it was an enigma to her. That kind of loyalty just didn't exist in the Alliance ranks. Ensigns didn't wait patiently besides the beds of incapacitated lieutenants, anxiously awaiting their return to the waking world. Not unless they were… No, even then… it was against regulation and downright stupid when serving at the front lines. That sort of display these days was regarded as a sign of affection in her book, but these inter-species cultural… _differences _had her amending absolutes and reworking facts.

She questioned Dr. Chakwas' judgment only momentarily, briefly concerned with the fact that she'd left her alone with Garrus for extended periods of time. Then again, the man had proved himself on countless occasions as a loyal soldier and valuable member of the crew. Chakwas was no slouch when it came to intuition and Shepard knew her to be a decent judge of character. Maybe there was something just inherently trustworthy about Garrus Vakarian.

Or maybe he was just a damn good actor.

"You left him alone with me and I'm still in once piece. Can't say that's grounds to have him court-martialed," Shepard sighed, flexing her fingers as a tingly wave spread over them.

"Yet I don't believe that it's enough to let him traipse about unchecked," Dr. Chakwas replied guardedly.

She had a point.

"Well then… You'd better get me up and walking before he hijacks the ship and flies us into a sun."

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_Toombs knew his shit. Shepard had to hand to him, despite how fiercely she wanted to fault him. Akuze was a regular black box of geological data and Alliance scientists were constantly hungry for more information. The problem was that they never seemed to be motivated enough to come out and explore for themselves. It was all a mess of probes and VI scouts, drifting across harsh deserts and dormant volcanoes. Most invasive technology crashed and burned, dying on the cruel surface after transmitting mere seconds of information. This meant that Shepard and her team frequented far beyond the Scalene Ridge on clean up missions, recovering charred space junk and hoarding it while they waited for the owners to reclaim then. _

_Shepard didn't understand how groups like Geo-Tech or the Terra Corporation could claim that Akuze was such an asset, yet never bothered to get their hands dirty on the surface. It was just another grievance to add to the list._

_Number one hundred and twelve, to be exact._

_Shepard squinted through the binoculars, adjusting the focus and magnification according to Toombs' direction. She had them trained skyward, just past the peaks of Scalene 1, the range's tallest. _

_"Alright… and there. See that flash? They get really bright once they break through the atmosphere. It's just the sun's reflection… Be careful if you're zoomed in too close. Burns the retinas for a second," Toombs spoke patiently as Shepard followed the falling probe, watching the numbers click away as the gadget monitored its altitude._

_"Contact. That's our target. I'll send TC the wave while you gather your crew. It's a couple hours out, so we're going to need to double up on the provisions."_

_Shepard remained mostly silent through the explanation as she had been for the first few weeks of their engagement. Corporal Toombs was a light-eyed man with a healthy tan; no doubt courtesy of constant exposure to Akuze's overbearing sun. Still, he was an optimistic solider with a firm grasp of their terrain and had these recovery operations down to an art. This did nothing to really increase her appreciation for the work, but it certainly helped when she didn't have to deal with first class morons._

_Shepard folded the binoculars and clipped them to her back harness, brushing against the familiar safety of her pistol. Toombs followed suit and Shepard nodded._

_"Rendezvous at the car port in 0100. We'll take two rovers and start through the pass as soon as we're outfitted."_

_"Yes ma'am", Toombs saluted and skidded down the slope of their perch, leaving a small cloud of dust in his wake. _

_Shepard hesitated, casting another glance to the distance. The probe had vanished quickly from sight, the tiny dot falling into obscurity behind a menacing range of mountains. It was high desert from there on out and she didn't like to venture through the S1 pass after nightfall. The area was plagued by fierce sand storms and the occasional magnetic interference. It made close-range communication difficult and ruined visibility. Still, the forecast showed a low probability for high winds and gave them a fairly wide window._

_Conditions were favorable, yes, but Shepard would have been just as content to call Terra Corps and make them dig it up themselves._

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Shepard stepped out of the elevator some time later in her navy operational dress. She'd taken a few minutes to pause before the mirror and rearranged the mess of black that clung to her face. It was a harsh contrast against the pale sheen of her face, but there was little she could do to fight it. The Alliance military rarely offered tanning days and she had better things to do on shore leave than bask in the sun.

She eventually lost all concern for her physical appearance when she caught sight of the Mako, belly up and covered in mismatched bits and pieces. The undercarriage had been torn open, bearing cables and all sorts of mechanical odds and ends that Shepard couldn't idenitfy for the life of her. She could hear the sound of welding- or what she thought to be welding.

"This isn't how we park the car," Shepard cocked her head to the side as she stated pointlessly.

Tali and Ashley's heads popped up simultaneously from alternate locations on the rover. It was just a tad unnerving, but she'd spent too much of the day pumped full of morphine to jump in surprise. The two abandoned their repairs and hurried over, each offering their words of relief and welcome. Wrex eventually wandered closer, apparently wary of the gaggle of girls chirping their greetings.

With pleasantries out of the way, Shepard pointed to the upturned rover.

"That bad, then?"

Tali nodded, turning to the Mako as her voice filtered through the obscuring mask. "Most of the internal circuits were fried and the anti gravity thrusters were rendered inoperable. Gunnery Chief Williams and I have been trying to restore it to some semblance of normalcy since we returned. We've made considerable progress with the cooling system and sensors, but these thrusters need replacing."

Williams nodded in concurrence, face smudged with grease and grime. Stray pieces of hair were bursting out of place. "It'll run fine. We just won't be jumping over any rockets."

Wrex's gravely voice was jarring interruption, breaking through the haze of feminine voices.

"Why ain't you dead, Shepard?"

That effectively flattened relatively lofty conversation. Tali and Williams faltered, words visibly dying on their lips (at least in Ashley's case) as they returned to their repairs. Shepard grinned just faintly.

"Medical science."

"Figures," the krogan grunted back, hinting at disappointment. Shepard wasn't sure how she could have made it respectable without lying. It was as though Wrex was expecting to hear how she'd defied mortality and survived on will alone… like she was made from tougher stuff. If mettle alone could mend wounds, it'd be a whole other story.

"I'm getting good at not dying, but I'm still no miracle worker. Cut me some slack, Wrex," Shepard replied defensively.

"Cut you slack? Why the hell would I do that?" He scoffed and lumbered away, leaving Shepard no reason to pursue him. The lift door hissed opened behind her, revealing the last three members of her party. Alenko's eyes lit up in excitement, no doubt awed by the difference a few hours had made in Shepard's appearance. She'd gone from invalid to ranking officer in record time.

Garrus was outwardly stoic, but she saw that same flicker in those clear blue eyes that reminded her of Dr. Chakwas' words. She motioned for all to gather round and introduced the asari briefly before she got to the heart of her intentions.

"I'm aware that we've lost a great deal of time and I apologize for that. However, we've got a clear-cut path ahead and solid leads to run with, so I don't imagine anything we accomplish from now on will be in vain. We've got a course charted for Noveria with two distress calls on hold. I'll be deferring them back to the fifth fleet while we make for the Noveria relay. These aren't just geth we're dealing with anymore. Saren's employed an army of mercenaries and they're not going to make this any easier. The only consolation is that we know there's a simpler motivation to them and they'll have a lot more to lose."

Questions came from all around her and she did her best to provide sufficient answers. When complaints died away and silence fell upon them, she nodded.

"You have about half an hour until we reach our destination. Use your time wisely."

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_School makes this difficult, but not undoable. Thanks to all who are STILL reading and reviewing. Your reviews are like sparkles to my dull, dreary day. 3_


	8. Chapter 8

_**Author's Notes**__: Holy SHIT I can't believe I finished this chapter. Hai guys. I'm back for the summer and ready to actually… regularly update again._

_Some notes? Okay, thank you SO much to everyone who bothers to review. The messages I get from time to time on my devArt are also wonderful. Let's see… this chapter isn't quite where I'd like it to be, but it's necessary for what I've got coming up. Someone talked to me about being a beta here but I didn't follow through this time around because I'm impatient and just wanted this posted. FAST. _

_Edited this one myself. You've been warned._

_I smell some BIOWARE copyright. Yum yum! God so freaking tired._

--

Maybe it was the after-effects of the pain killers. Maybe it was simply the result of ten straight unconscious hours spent trapped in a perpetual state of solitude. Maybe it was the gradual realization that she'd just skirted the coattails of death and knew such plain luck eventually ran out at the most inopportune moments. Most encounters with projectile weapons left her with a few holes, but they rarely meant an extended trip to the intensive care unit. Dr. Chakwas made it perfectly clear just how close she'd come to checking out permanently and the knowledge didn't sit lightly. There was a refreshed respect for medical science and the skill of her own crew, but she couldn't allow apprehension to work its way in there. Humans were resilient creatures with the ability to learn, despite whether or not such a feature was utilized. Hold a hand to the burner for too long and you learn to pull your hand away, hopefully, to never reach for it again. In Shepard's case, jumping right back into the fire was in the job description.

Whatever it was, it drove her into the throngs of conversation, instilling within her an out-of-character desire to be among the living. This wasn't to say she contributed much to the working chatter, but simply being in the presence of others with a pulse as strong as her own calmed the worry and only added to her current appreciation of life and all the glorious things in it. Including power tools. And omni-gel. Lots of it. She'd left the Mako in a sorry state and felt her share of guilt for leaving it for the mechanics to deal with. A combination of quarian expertise and human ingenuity managed to turn the rover upright in record time. The shields were online and all other basic functions had been restored, save the invaluable use of their anti-gravity thrusters. The thrusters were completely useless just as Tali had warned and had been removed from the vehicle entirely. Shepard and Joker had dedicated a few critical minutes to shopping via the local com channels, interrogating nearby commercial frigates and military cruisers alike for a matching set of thrusters. Their questioning may have come off as pushy by most standards, but they were racing the clock and she still hadn't debriefed Citadel Tower.

Their search almost ended in failure, though another call to the fifth fleet guaranteed them a new pair in roughly two hours. Shepard had decided to keep their current schedule and dock at Hanshan while awaiting the delivery. The Normandy would then rendezvous with their contact from the fifth fleet while the shore party continued their investigation at port. This meant that their work on the surface needed to go smoothly, since their only means of escape would be comfortably in orbit by the time shit hit the fan. Shepard didn't have the manpower to engage security in a fire fight, especially considering the civilian nature of the area. The crew had offered their varying protests, but none could sway Shepard. Time was priceless here and she didn't feel that sitting idly by in space waiting for her special delivery was going to make matters much better.

Instead, she holstered the Striker at the small of her back, snapping it securely in place. She bid farewell to the familiar comfort of the Scorpion hard suit after returning to find it riddled with holes and leaking coolant. Standard-issue Alliance hardsuits didn't quite meet Shepard's approval as of late considering how many she'd seen obliterated by geth weaponry. Second party manufacturers seemed to have the right idea, learning as opposed to stubbornly denying that improvements were necessary. So she'd donned the steely blue-gray of the Guardian model and installed the pick of her modest selection of upgrades. She'd made quick work of the adjustments within the confines of her starkly spartan living quarters, spared from the distraction of the rest of the crew. Shepard took her helmet in the crook of her arm and set for the door, taking her leave as the panel hissed open.

She ran into her first snare merely seconds later as she found Garrus standing at the foot of the stairs leading to the bridge. He straightened as she approached, sidestepping minutely, leaving her space to pass him. She noted the subtle gesture and had to mark the thought of it. There were demands to be made, surely, but the movement displayed Garrus' awareness of his own subordinate status. No military-minded creature would put itself directly in the way of a commanding officer unless there was a damn good reason. Even then, explanations were rarely enough to forgive such insubordination.

"This is becoming a bad habit, Garrus," Shepard stated flatly, careful not to let her eyes wander across his oddly plated face.

Garrus gave a curt nod. "Apologies, commander. There's a much more urgent matter this time around. I assure you."

His tone alone gave that away. The request in the elevator had been a cautious question and Shepard had given Garrus no reason to hold his tongue. It had been a casual scenario and she'd given him permission to speak freely. He spoke when spoken to and let the matter lie once settled. Here in the hallway, however, Garrus spoke with a necessity that had piqued Shepard's curious attention.

Shepard nodded and gestured up the stairs with her helmet, "Walk and talk, Garrus."

The commander led the way as the turian followed close behind, talons clicking as they ascended the curving stairway. "Shepard, I think we might be walking into a bigger mess than previously anticipated."

They reached the threshold and proceeded past the artificial glow of their charted galaxy. A marine skirted by them and offered a snappy salute, which Shepard returned reflexively. "Want to be a little less cryptic?"

"Elanus Risk Control has a great deal of influence at Hanshan. The branch stationed at the port has almost as much jurisdiction there as C-Sec does at the Citadel, only with half the rules and regulations. Turians, mainly… disgruntled ones."

"So how is this a mess and why should I clean it up?"

"They want nothing more than for us to crash and burn before we so much as break atmo. I've got evidence to a conspiracy down there. Remnants of com exchanges, extranet files, audio clips, invoices-"

Shepard paused at the partition, casting a sideways glance to the massive white call sign painted on the back of the wall, "And they lead to…?"

Garrus came to a halt across from her and folded blue plated arms across his armored chest, "The highly likely event of an ambush at Hanshan."

"I'd challenge the intelligence if time permitted it, but I'm going to have to go on faith here," Shepard swallowed a low growl and tucked it far out of earshot. Information like this always tasted slightly less bitter when served a few hours prior to an actual drop. She had less than thirty minutes to go and this little bundle of news was as welcome as cancer on Christmas day. There was little she could do about the threat of yet another attack other than pack a few extra grenades and containers of medi-gel. More guns wouldn't work until she grew enough hands to wield them, so her options were few. Garrus couldn't have done much else to improve the situation, but she was having one hell of a time trying not to take out her frustrations on the C-Sec officer. Shepard was a soldier, but she was also female and did experience moments of irrational thought. Besides, he was right there… and she was right here and she'd spent way too long flat on her back, converting oxygen to carbon dioxide and not much else. Such nonproductive bouts of unconsciousness bothered her.

"We're taking a big risk here, Shepard. If things don't go swimmingly with the locals in addition to a surprise attack from ERC, we're going to be high and dry without the Normandy within reach."

Shepard did not want to hear her own thoughts repeated back at her and she let the acid sarcasm slip oh so gently.

"Good thing you're coming, then. You can yell 'duck' when they try to blow our fucking brains out."

Garrus stood stock still and his usually careful eyes became clear blue lasers locked on her own. Shepard might have faltered on another day, another mission, but the anger had given her a reckless abandon here in the safety of the hallway that she chose to point at the turian towering over her. Smart? No. Satisfying? Damn straight. She'd stepped up to the line and left Garrus with few options. She was genuinely curious to see if he'd challenge the chain of command and didn't quite know what she'd do if he did just that. Shepard followed his eyes. He was looking for reason, trying to seek out humor and appeared stony after finding none. A mandible twitched so quickly that she wondered for a moment if he'd moved at all.

To her disappointment and relief, he left the bait where it lay and continued on, following her lead with his own brand of sarcasm "…I'll point them out. They'll be hard to miss. Just look for the over-armed squad of angry turians."

The estrogen fizzled and died, bringing with it shame and embarrassment as Shepard let the pretense fall. A small sigh slipped between parted lips as she shook her head.

"Sorry. That was out of line- Me… I was out of line," she fumbled, tripped, and recovered. The words felt slippery and foreign, reluctant to bend to her will.

For all her verbal failures, Garrus seemed easy to forgive and did so quickly, waving away her missteps, "No, Commander. I should have known just as well how that sort of news would fall. I certainly wouldn't be jumping for joy."

His manner softened. How, she couldn't explain, but there was a release of tension in his face, a change in the pale eyes and an undercurrent to his voice she'd not heard before.

"I didn't even ask about your injuries, Shepard. I'm sorry."

That took her aback and she didn't have the foresight to mask it. The shock played out in all surprised glory across her face, vibrant and blatant as a flashing neon billboard. Polite medical concern was one thing, but the earnest regret from a crewmember for forgoing a personal inquiry was something entirely different. Dr. Chakwas' words came flooding back along with a few garbled images of a hovering gray shadow on her left, sometimes right, and the crisper memory of a turian standing over her bed, welcoming her back to awareness. The clips flew through her mind in a fraction of a second, distorted by the then effects of painkillers and morphine. They'd remain untouched, unspoken until forgotten. Some things were simply never meant to be shared.

Just as some people were never meant to hold graceful conversations. "Why should you?" Shepard blurted out dumbly. She immediately bit her tongue, kicking herself at such a stupid question. It was earnest, yes. She couldn't fathom immediately why he'd follow up on her, even after being reminded of just how diligent a watch dog he was. The words were spoken and lost- no way to snatch them out of the air and stuff them back into her mouth. So she braced for impact, waiting with bated breath for the consequences of her slip.

But again, Garrus let it slide, much to her relief and astonishment. "You might first ask why I shouldn't," he replied mildly and fell back, turning towards the stairway. "Best get to the council, ma'am. I'll be in the docking bay awaiting your orders."

With a firm nod, he turned and went his way while the after effects of their conversation lingered. Shepard had no inclination to dwell in it, suddenly faced with the growing realization that Garrus was learning to speak her language. Life before the Normandy had offered little experience where alien culture was concerned and in a matter of weeks, she'd covered a lot of ground. What worried her most was the comfort she took in the turian's presence. Perhaps it wasn't Garrus that brought her peace, but the undeniable fact that she identified with the race itself and took comfort in its very existence. The notion tied knots in her stomach. That kind of attitude would warrant a sound beating from millions of loyalists still fighting the war she thought had ended years ago.

Shepard grimaced and turned to the com room, chasing away unfamiliar, threatening thoughts with all the willpower she could muster.

--

"_Toombs, where do you get your forecasts?" Shepard shouted to the corporal from the passenger seat. Their proximity was nothing compared to the roar of the outside noise. All she could do was shout and hope to be understand on the first try. She didn't like repeating herself._

"_Akuze has two weather satellites. They've been in orbit for a few years, but they've held up relatively well," Toombs bellowed back over the din of the humvee, gripping the wheel tightly as they barreled through another crater. _

"_Might want to look for new sources," Shepard grumbled, not intending to be heard in the slightest. Her mood had soured considerably since their departure from base. The first disappointment came with the news of Terra Corps corporate competitors and their intention to recover the lost probe by militant means. This meant their garrison had a clock to race and the possibilities of mercenary interference. This also meant that two rovers full of soldiers wouldn't suffice and, instead, Shepard was obligated to command nearly fifty men and women through the Scalene Ridge. It was entirely unnecessary, but was standard procedure when non-corporate interference threatened recovery operations with violence. It was a job easily managed by ten marines at the most, but the extra forty were meant for the intimidation factor and the unlikely presence of reinforcements. It was a back-asswards policy that brass had approved years ago, back before the first Alliance allocation of reserve troops to outer planets. Akuze was one of the few cases that would never receive official attention unless some hostile species declared war with humanity on its soil, or if the very planet imploded. Even then, she doubted that the fleet would lose much sleep. _

_Shepard didn't like dragging her squad around for show. They were highly-trained individuals with exceptional records and didn't deserve to spend hours every day bumping along in the back of a convoy. _

_The second disappointment came when they pulled out of the garage and accelerated into a dust storm. It had left them with very little visibility and by the time they passed Scalene 1, their navigation system had started to fritz. Toombs had uttered a few choice curses when the storm turned magnetic, thoroughly frustrated by their equipment failures. Shepard found some scrap of faith in Toomb's know-how. The corporal had plenty of experience in the storms and knew the Scalene Ridge well, but this particular drop had them venturing further out than customary and Shepard was expected to defend the drop zone in virtually zero visibility. Their personal radios were barely functional. Shepard had put on her helmet in the humvee and tested her own system with O'Callahan's in the back seat. Even only a few feet apart, their exchanges were broken and riddled with static. _

_With the sun scheduled to set within a matter of hours and conditions worsening by the minute, Shepard could find little reason to set a standard for morale. _

"_Ma'am," O'Callahan shouted from the back seat, leaning forward, "have you checked your emergency channel since we left?" _

_She craned her head around to see the fair-haired man looking considerably paler and visibly uncomfortable. Shepard put on her helmet and attempted a call, earning her a few static bursts and a new batch of stomach knots. She removed it and turned back to O'Callahan, letting concern slip through. "No good. Must be the storm."_

_The marine nodded and inclined his head towards the window, where clouds of brown blew past in an opaque fog. "Mine's jammed, too. Are we obligated to follow through with all the instrumentation failure?"_

_Before she could answer, the onboard radio screeched and squealed through the noise of the storm. It wasn't loud enough to deafen, but had just the right frequency to irritate eardrums. Shepard saw Toombs' lips form a colorful slew of words, but couldn't hear them over the roar of the storm. The corporal yanked the receiver from the console and passed it off to Shepard. _

"_Shepard, see if you can get one of the convoys. Might have a small problem."_

"_Surprise, surprise," she clicked in and the static silenced, "Dune Buggy to CV-1 and CV-2. Do you copy? Repeat, Dune Buggy to CV-1 and CV-2. Do you copy? Over."_

_Static and radio garbage screamed back. Shepard called out to the rest of the caravan once more, to no avail. O'Callahan leaned forward, face furrowed in concentration. "I know that sound."_

_Shepard arched a brow at the marine, "What?"_

"_My ears could be playing tricks on me out here… but… Damn if that doesn't sound like actual radio jamming," O'Callahan reached up to point at the console. "It's rough, but I can almost hear a signature."_

_Toombs belted back, maintaining an iron grip on the steering wheel, "We get a lot of interference out here, but it passes. Just when you think you hear a pattern, it clears up and you're back to normal."_

_Sure enough, the wailing ceased and the static marked return calls from the remainder of their party. The transmissions were weak and choppy, but clear enough to prove they weren't entirely cut off. Shepard turned to an off-put O'Callahan._

"_Must have been the storm."_

_But the marine didn't look nearly so assured. Shepard frowned, "O'Callahan?"_

_Pale blue eyes steeled on her own, "I could have sworn…"_

_Shepard shook her head and pinched the bridge of her nose with a black-gloved hand, coming away with the dust and sweat, "Keep your emergency channel open and let me know if you pick it up again. Don't jump any guns- just tell me if you pick out the signature again. If we get a repeat, we'll turn this party around."_

_In time, hopefully._

--

"Shepard, we're giving you leads so that you can further investigate Saren's actions and anticipate the next, not so you can hop from planet to planet and wreak havoc," the salarian representative chided through the flickering hologram, metallic voice slowly working Shepard's nerves into a bundle of anxiety. She stood stock still and dumb while each took their turn delivering their admonitions.

"We offer you Benezia's location and now you'd rather interfere with the local administration? I'm sorry, but this is hardly a worthwhile cause. You know better than anyone there's no time to spare with native squabbles," the turian braced the console, leaving the asari to chastise her.

"The fact that you failed to gather this intelligence prior to your choice is unfortunate, but you can not involve yourself with the Elanus Risk Control and their actions on Noveria. Your priority is Benezia and the conduit; the keys to tracking Saren down and neutralizing him. Every action you take that doesn't directly involve these leads is detrimental to your cause and does nothing to assure us that your Spectre status is being properly utilized. You forget your place, Shepard."

One breath in. Out. A second breath in. Out. She willed the indignation to leave her with each exhale, but it stuck to her, parasitic and eager to attack.

Silence stifled the room as the council waited for a reply. An apology, explanation… something to encourage further reproach.

Not today.

"On the contrary. You forget mine. I'm human before Spectre," Shepard couldn't blink- refused to blink. The council balked and Shepard offered little time for them to recover.

"You granted me this status because I proved myself capable of getting the job done."

The turian barked back, "You were given this status in a time of crisis. You were the only one we could spare for-"

Shepard raised her voice just enough to swallow up the end of the representative's sentence, "I was never yours to _spare_. I gave you proof I could do the job and God damn it, I will get it done. But you have to understand that I have human lives to look after and I will always put them first. I will not lead my team into a firing squad. When I receive word from a reliable source that my crew is in danger, I'm going to do something about it regardless as to whether or not I've had time to make myself a schedule. We're not leaving Hanshan until I'm certain that I can leave the Normandy behind and expect to find my crew alive when we return."

The asari gripped her console and leaned forward, voice brimming with frustration, "Shepard, your priority is-"

"My crew comes first," Shepard declared.

The salarian turned to the asari, then back to Shepard, "Your mission-"

"My crew comes _first_. End transmission." The red glow of the Citadel Council faded, leaving the com room dark and painfully empty. She turned on her heel and stormed out the door, set for the docking bay. She hustled down the stairs, willing her heartbeat to calm and blood pressure to even out.

Garrus was the first face she saw when the elevator door lifted. He caught her eye and intercepted her before she could gather the squad. Something gave her away, judging by the caution in his steps. She felt like her eyes would shoot lasers if she concentrated enough. That could have been a tell. Maybe the anger creasing her face. Maybe she just smelled furious because Garrus sure as hell knew.

"Shepard? What-"

"Leave ERC to me. It's under control," Shepard stated monotonously as she waved in the rest of the crew for the pre-docking briefing.

The turian officer wasn't satisfied and stepped closer, staring hard at her. "What's that supposed to-"

"It's under fucking control, Garrus," she managed to say flatly as she shoved her helmet on and activated the heads up display. She expected him to back off, step off, get the hell away… either, or. Instead, he stood his ground and those eyes threatened to pierce right through her brain. This time, she refused to enter the staring contest. There was nothing to be challenged and little he could do about his own dissatisfaction. The rest of her team gathered round and Garrus was forced to fall back in line, back-stepping rigidly beside a thankfully unaware Tali.

"Listen up!" Shepard barked as she gave her crew the once-over, purposely avoiding eye contact with the turian.

"You're all aware that we're not going to have a life boat for two hours after we've docked. Tali, I need you to stay on board and assist with the thruster installation. Williams will stay back with you for any remaining adjustments. Once that's done, it needs to be fully operational. Immediately. We can't leave Hanshan without the Mako so it's vital that you make the drop as soon as it's ready to go. Wrex and Garrus, you and whatever explosives you've got are coming ashore with me."

Wrex smirked, "Expecting a few surprises, Shepard?"

She allowed herself a glance at Garrus, who'd managed to recover a thoughtful face, though irritation still glimmered in the reptilian eyes, "Always."

--

_Yeah, next chapter is where it's at. Mmboy, do I have PLAAAAANS. MUAHAHA!_


	9. Chapter 9

_**Author's Notes**__: That took longer than I thought. I know I said something about regularly updating sooo… whoops. Summer classes, my job and… yeah, costuming took up a lot more time than I expected. It's done, though. I swear. Next chapter is already in the oven and stuff. Special thanks to Ali for cracking the whip and making me feel like this is worth writing… and reading. :P_

Still beta-less.

_My summer sucked minus a few things; this being one of those things. Thanks for getting me to 100 reviews!! I'LL BAKE YOU A CAKE!!111eleven_

_Who's that? Oh, it's BioWare. They want their copyrighted material back. Oops. Sorry._

--

Shepard's mood was steadily souring, almost exponentially so with each passing minute. The outer dock doors of Hanshan hissed shut behind them as she holstered her weapon and struggled to bridle her temper. Behind her, a severely disgruntled security detail and the remnants of a good ol' fashion, head-up-the-ass stand-off. Garrus had balked at her sudden refusal to negotiate. Rather, she exercised her will through the barrel of the pistol, promising displays of violence if not taken seriously. Sure enough, her Spectre status had cleared just in time, saving the women from Shepard's loose trigger finger. Her squad had held fast to their silence during the exchange, but she could feel them thawing out, testing reproaches and questions. She could hear their gears turning and made no motion to encourage them. The Normandy was minutes away from departure and Shepard didn't favor the notion now that she was aware of blatant hostilities in a civilian zone. Geth were one thing, but highly trained ERC operatives required a completely different plan of attack.

Shepard had tried to suit up in peace, but her precious moment of solitude had been interrupted by a perturbed lieutenant Alenko, who chose that place and time to unload his frustrations regarding her distance towards the rest of the crew and her decision to take a completely alien squad ashore. She'd begun calmly, rationalizing her decision with facts and level opinions. Yes, Williams was just as effective as Wrex with a shotgun and she gave the krogan a run for his money when it came to resilience. However, Gunnery Chief Ashley Williams lacked a vital characteristic that Wrex possessed in excess: stature. She'd long-since abandoned the flamboyant white and pink hardsuit (at the Commander's urging) for a more conservative set, but it still didn't make up for the fact that she was both small by comparison, and a woman. The active crew had quickly dismissed whatever misgivings they had about her character. If they'd seen her in action, they knew her to be as hard as nails and quite colorful with her expletives. There was a calculated brutality about her that came and went as subtly as the tide. Shepard knew she could very well be the true powerhouse of the party, but Wrex just looked the part.



When Kaidan continued to refute her, she became short and told him quite plainly that Alenko hadn't even the muscle to scare a child. She'd regretted the specific words she had used then, but couldn't honestly say she would have apologized for driving Kaidan away, downtrodden and silent. She'd managed one last glimpse at the lieutenant just before the outer doors closed and the decontamination began. He seemed nothing less than forlorn, gazing at Shepard as though she'd sprouted horns and spat acid at him. Perhaps to the rest of the crew, she did seem out of sorts with the recent influx of alien friendlies. She found their assistance positively invaluable and never ceased to be fascinated by cultures that seemed to embrace her lifestyle so much more fully. Perhaps that was what had her so keen on keeping their company. In all honesty, she felt more at ease with them than she had with anyone in years. There was a strange comfort she took from them. There was nothing driving her to impress them. There was no need for false pretense or fake attempts at conversation. There was no reason for her to try and mask her awkward social tendencies. Among aliens, there were no true set social standards; only the mutual understanding and respect for one's own ways. Shepard breathed easier when she was able to let focus slide from her own outward appearance and just _be._

This realization worried her, as there was nothing more ridiculous-sounding on an active frigate than a racial identity crisis. If she couldn't identify with humans, then what were her other options?

And what _exactly_ did that make her?

"I really hope first impressions aren't as permanent as your kind seem to believe, Shepard," Garrus chided with blatant disapproval.

'_You kind'? Really? _Shepard mused to herself, determined to let the race card lie.

Wrex rumbled as the second set of doors slid open, granting them passage. "I think we got a damn good point across: don't stick your guns in our face and you might live to see another day."

"That's assuming you want another tomorrow. If I had to call this place home, I'd turn the gun on myself. Cold as fuck and no Christmas in sight…" Shepard muttered as she motioned her party forward, eyes locked on the uninviting front desk.

Ironically, Shepard had never experienced an honest Christmas. They'd observed it on Cafrim and had even managed a few celebrations on the Lima, but most of the crew had a proper Earth Christmas to reflect on. Shepard had come to know the bastardized version – a holotree accompanied by an overplayed carol sound-byte- and accepted it. Stories simply led her to believe that Christmas typically came during a time of unforgiving, bitter weather; the bright spot in the middle of an otherwise miserable season. She figured she'd made a clever little point there. However, the realization that she'd chosen an entirely alien crew came too late and left her sorely missing even the most forced of chuckles. Now it was just plain uncomfortable. Shepard didn't deserve it, but Wrex and Garrus granted her merciful silence as opposed to overdue incredulous questioning.

They'd passed the welcoming committee with a great deal less incident. The reception desk had little to offer in the way of hospitality with security cameras swiveling every which way as if desperate to find something worth noting. Once again, Shepard found herself in a painfully slow elevator, helmet off and latched down where an assault rifle should have been, watching the concrete surrounding them inch downwards while they continued the steady crawl upwards. The secure silence of the elevator also meant the inevitable squad chatter. She braced herself for whatever commentary Garrus and Wrex had saved for the enclosed space and was not disappointed.

Wrex rumbled, folding his arms across his massive chest, "So you got a plan here, Shepard? Or are we going to just dick around in the lobby until our ride shows up?"

Shepard paused, testing the sound of her own response in her head. A pang of annoyance struck her; a rare occurrence when speaking to Wrex. She usually saw eye to eye with the krogan, but had very little tolerance at the present for his snide criticism. He was a warrior, of that she was convinced, used to setting his own course and answering to no one unless he expected a bounty out of the encounter. In this case, Shepard had little to offer him other than the faint hope of galactic safety and the vague assurance that he might just find personal fulfillment out in the stellar boonies.

Whatever she'd prepared, Garrus crushed it preemptively as he beat her to a response. "I don't believe the Mako would be much benefit to us at the present moment anyway."

Wrex huffed; an oddly canine sound for such an obviously reptilian creature, and shifted his weight towards Garrus. Shepard merely had to sit back and watch. "Last time I checked, a low-gravity rover seemed to be pretty big shit out in the ass end of the galaxy. When did that change, Vakarian?"

Shepard anticipated the challenge and prepared to step in. Prepared, mind you. For the moment, she was content to play the spectator. If she assumed the role of referee, she'd have to step up her game and mediate, which involved talking and soothing damaged egos- a task she lacked the patience for at this place and time. Hell, Wrex could have bludgeoned Garrus with the butt of his own rifle and she probably wouldn't have flinched. Despite her current reservations towards the turian, she couldn't truly fathom the idea of standing idly by while the C-Sec agent took a sound beating. One way or another, no matter the grudge, she'd come to the rescue.

Lucky for her, Garrus needed no saving.

"When we registered at the front desk. There was a list of garage passes- a handful of different levels of access… and the passes themselves had no price tags which leads me to believe that you don't drive out of here unless the administration has a very good reason to grant clearance."

Garrus had a point and Shepard took Wrex's silence for agreement. The glass door of the elevator slid round and a humid gust of air filled the enclosure. They stepped out into a steamy second floor, pools of steaming water filling the air with warm moisture. It wasn't the sticky heat 

associated with greenhouses or the like, but a comfortable atmosphere that seemed as though it'd permeate bone to chase away the chill brought on by the frigid world outside the safety of the port. A quick look out the massive windows was enough to make one truly appreciate the climate control within. The mere sight of the perpetual blizzard caused cold's long fingers to take hold.

"We could opt for clearance. Or we could wait until the Normandy drops the Mako and blow out of here; screw the pass," Shepard thought out loud as they turned the corner, eying the plaza with due caution.

Wrex's voice held the hint of humor, and odd sound for their reptilian powerhouse, "That's awful brash of you Shepard. Could be interesting."

Shepard half-heard him, occupied with her own process. She led them further into the plaza, making out voices competing with the steady rush of the water. Business-like chatter, low hums… cordial, nonthreatening, but undeniably unnatural.

"Interesting? Try stupid. This port is fortified; we'll be target practice," Garrus stated, frustration working its way into his voice.

Shepard wasn't looking at either of them, but she could feel Garrus' eyes staring a whole into her skull. She knew well enough that the words were aimed especially at her. She hadn't actually committed to either of those options; they'd been the spawn of her misplaced sarcasm and Garrus was tearing them down. All the while, she was picking out the threats. One, two, three-five alien agents, all sporting the same drab combat suits with the Elanus Risk Control insignia emblazoned on the right shoulder. They littered the plaza- what she could see of it, anyways. There was a small platform down the stairs with a few steel benches, ideal for private conversations… and plots.

When she finally let her attention waver, she slowly turned her head to Garrus, prepared to find him just as bitter as ever. Shepard, however, found him quite involved in something else, staring over her head intently. She followed his line of sight, which led right back to the agents. Two of the turians had locked in conversation and Shepard had no way of making out any of it. There was no way her automatic translator would work at this distance, nor would lip reading do her any kid. There was a problem with looking for physicals clues to a language she didn't speak… and a certain lack of _lips._

Previous repartee forgotten, Shepard's stopped, startled as the comm line opened in her ear piece.

"Shepard, fifth fleet just called in. The Calgary's here, parts and all. We've got to leave port," Joker sounded just as stressed as Shepard felt and that very moment. By some stroke of luck, she retained her stony countenance long enough to give the signal for the squad to disperse while she found a secluded spot beside the emporium, extended strides swallowing tile. There the veneer fell and revealed earnest distress.

The beauty of the onboard communication system was its lack of a holographic visual, which left Shepard free to look as agitated as she damn well pleased. Once out of earshot, she reopened the channel, training her voice to remain level, "They're over an hour early. What's going on?"

"Admiral Hackett sent the Calgary to deliver the parts, but the Calgary has three outstanding distress calls to answer. We're still priority, but the rest of the Alliance wants the Calgary back on pick-up detail. They need to do the transfer now and high-tail it back to the Noveria relay before brass brings down the hammer."

Shepard swallowed her curses and looked up, scanning the plaza for marooned crew. Garrus was standing inconspicuously at ease by the small collection of tables, appearing to busy himself with an omni-tool. Wrex, on the other hand, looked nothing less than daunting as he brooded beside a rushing pool.

She took a quiet breath in and replied, "There were no other frigates they could transfer the parts to? You have to rendezvous with the _one_ overbooked life boat?"

Joker honored her incredulity, sounding just as exasperated as the commander felt, "I gave them an earful, commander, but the captain said the only set of thrusters they had access to were locked away on a munitions cruiser stationed on the outskirts of the Terminus system. No one else really had much motive to make pickup. Calgary thinks they're doing us a huge favor and don't want to hear whatever logical complaints we've got. It's their time frame or bust, Shepard. Right now, I'm all for 'bust.'"

There were a few choice expletives that would have accurately summed up the situation, but she'd save those for later. God willing there'd be a later.

"Understood. Get out of here, Joker. We'll handle things while you're gone. Just don't take your time."

"Roger that, commander; back in a flash. We won't leave you hanging. Normandy out," Joker's channel clicked off, leaving Shepard uneasy. She had an apt squad at her fingertips, all bickering aside, but their base of operations was about to lift off and leave them to whatever ill fate lay on this frigid rock. They were virtually stranded in the visitor's center with no viable sources regarding Benezia's latest course of action. Without the Mako, they hadn't a snowball's chance in hell of reaching the Peak; their only true lead. Not to mention she hadn't actually ironed out every vital detail regarding the ERC threat; namely _why _Shepard had become a primary target.

She peeled away from the wall and set off towards Garrus, whose plated face remained carefully set as his attention remained on the lower level of the plaza. He turned, eyes glistening in the dimness. Her footsteps faded, overpowered by the sound of the rushing water, feeling the steam against her cool cheeks as she approached the table.

"Commander?" His voice rumbled with the ambient fountain, still carefully clipped, though genuinely curious as he deactivated the omni-tool.

Again, her eyes darted across the tile, recounting the marked agents and absorbing minute traits. Three turians, two salarians. _Turian one; onyx, grey markings_, _one visible pistol._

She spoke quickly, reluctant to flap her lips any more than necessary, "The Normandy's away and we need exit clearance before they get back. And you need to tell me why the ERC wants us dead."

_Or else I'll just start taking them out now and avoid the interrogation altogether._

This was a negative change of thought process. She was usually calculated, reserved, level-headed, but the odds were stacking up against her and she was accruing enemies like she was starting a collection. Now, Shepard was noticing a trend in her first strikes. Quick to pull a gun, quicker to pull the trigger. Training and mounting tension was tightening strings and making each breath a little more shallow.

Warily, she peeled her gaze away from the loose cluster of grey-clad aliens and forced herself to meet Garrus' stare swallowing whatever pride still lingered.

Garrus' eyes lit up as the information processed, the faint remnants of animosity long forgotten as the mission chased away lesser, trivial matters. Pale, painted mandibles twitched below her as he met her eyes. Shepard knew he saw her, but the piercing intensity she usually associated with his scrutiny was absent. His mind was in another place, another problem.

He let the Normandy's absence pass. "My investigation didn't reveal liberal amounts of motive; only location and method. They don't want us getting off this planet alive. They'll keep it low-profile; nowhere near civilians."

Like magnets, her eyes found the ERC once again and counted, clinging to the number like a lifeline. As long as they remained in sight, there was control. _Two more turians. Grey, barefaced. Pistols. Asari, no visible weapons._

"We'll never get a garage pass if we stay in the plaza…" But no sooner had the words left her mouth than a plan formed amidst the twisting trails of thoughts and data all competing for precedence in her mind.

"Wait here," she ordered Garrus, who nodded curtly as she turned to find Wrex with his short, gauntleted arms folded firmly across his chest. A pair of human clerks skirted past him as he made special effort to keep his red eyes locked on them. When they scuttled out of sight, he let a faint grin twist his wide mouth upwards.

Shepard wasn't in the mood for ego or misplaced intimidation and left no room for nonsense, "Wrex, I need you to stay on point here while Garrus and I try to get garage clearance. I've counted five ERC agents in this floor and you need to let me know if any one of them leaves this area. I'll contact you once we get a pass and meet you at the north end of the plaza."

She expected a challenge or crass comment picking at whatever flaws he saw in her plan, but he appeared un-phased by the hasty decision.

"What's my cover?" He growled, motioning to the aforementioned officers.

Shepard looked over her shoulder, counting all five once again in an almost obsessive pattern. Paranoia, she hoped, would pay off in the end. Otherwise, it would probably be her end.

She shrugged, "If they get close enough to ask you what you're doing here, shoot them."

His sudden stillness threw her off guard as he studied her carefully. Stubborn habit had her unconsciously meeting his stare. Wrex lowered his voice; though Shepard had once thought that act impossible. His words rumbled around her like low thunder, harshly different than the soft vibration of Garrus' demeanor.

"You think the turian's hunch is that good, huh?"

Shepard nodded without hesitation, "I don't take death threats lightly, Wrex. We've got too much to lose."

"You know, I took you for one who'd be a little more by the book. Not that I'm complaining," his tone softened, absorbing an unusually conversational quality.

"Out here? Whatever gets the job done. I'm not going to hold onto protocol if I'm staring at the wrong end of a rifle," her eyes wandered again. _One, two, three, four… five._

"You're playing favorites, Shepard. Your crew will talk… 'bout how you've got a soft spot for the _aliens_."

She couldn't see so much as she could hear the smirk in his voice. It drew Shepard's attention back to the krogan. Her eyes hardened into his ruby gaze, lips setting in an unspoken challenge, almost daring him to finish the thought he'd left incomplete, but obvious enough.

Sure enough, he accepted, the humor dissipating in favor of a foreboding certainty, "You're playing a dangerous game."

Cursing her own failing will, she cast Garrus the briefest of looks and returned to the krogan, knowing well enough she'd given herself away.

"Bullshit. I don't play games," she growled and stormed away, motioning for Garrus to follow.

--

_"Radio's completely out and I have no visuals whatsoever!" Toombs shouted over the roar of the ongoing sandstorm, continuously fiddling with the communications panel while he left the humvee stationary. There was nothing past the fortified windshield but a wall of reddish _

_brown. The storm had shown no signs of relenting since their first communications blip and visibility had only worsened. They'd stopped on the crest of what they'd figured to be a sand dune, fighting to contact their other two units. Magnetic interference had rendered all communication waves useless and they were running out of immediate options._

_Shepard craned her head around to the backseat, brow furrowing as O'Callahan lowered his visor, reaching to attach his oxygen hoses, "L.C., permission to step outside? I might be able to see where the other convoys stalled with the heads up."_

_"Denied. The only thing you'll get out there is a good sand blasting. With communications like this, I don't want anyone leaving the humvee!" she called over the roar of the wind, hoping the Toombs' two men would heed her own orders. Regardless of their respect for her, they looked weary enough of the storm that she didn't foresee either of them diving headfirst through the passenger side window and into the dunes. _

_"Then what are we supposed to do?" O'Callahan's exasperation finally revealed itself as he yelled. He threw off his helmet and let it fall to the floor, blonde sweat-slick hair sticking up at odd, awkward angles._

_"We're just going to have to wait out the storm," Shepard tried to reassure him, though she felt no more comforted by the idea. She turned to Toombs, "Your drivers know to stay put?"_

_The corporal nodded, landing one slap of surrender on the radio before kicking up his boots on the consol, assuming the most relaxed position he could manage in the cramped humvee._

_"They know what they're doing," he belted out, folding his hands over the plated chest of his combat suit, "This isn't exactly our first gig like this."_

_"Well, that's… reassuring," she looked out the window once again, hoping the rest of her crew had enough sense and patience to stay aboard their convoys. She mirrored Toombs' position hesitantly, having never truly found it easy to recline on duty. But she had few other options and there wasn't exactly any motive to play 'I Spy'._

--

Anoleis' bickering assailed her, but did nothing to sway her from her decision. Shepard exchanged parting salutes to the officers holding the salarian in custody and spun on her heel as soon as they turned the corner. She marched past a complacent Garrus, clutching the data card in an iron grip.

"I swear, people need to learn how to take out their own fucking trash," she hissed as the two trooped out of the office, the turian flanking her closely. A gaggle of onlookers skirted out of their way, positively unsettled by Shepard's manner. They passed the transparency glass of the 

partition and Shepard caught a startling look at her own face; alight with malice and ready to breathe fire.

"Easy, Shepard," Garrus warned, ducking his head as he muttered in her ear. Their height difference forced him to come down to her level, which made her feel suddenly childish and frustratingly small. By comparison, she was one of the taller women in service, standing at a respectable five-foot-seven. She met most other servicemen at eye level and had a few inches on some that she'd served with. Garrus Vakarian, however, positively dwarfed her.

His stature also gave him this uncanny influence over her at times. When she was composed and controlled, Shepard maintained her stance and accepted his input with a critical head. Moments like this, however, when frustration and anger fused together to form roadblocks in her thought process, gave him an edge. Sometimes, a single word quelled the fire and replaced it with placidity.

At that moment, the mere sound of her name from his angular face instilled within her a seed of calm. This felt different, though. Shepard wondered cautiously if there was more to it than just… being tall. Either way, his entreaty worked and her face fell.

"Right… We need to get Wrex and get out of here…" she continued, making a conscious effort to soften her tone. They had left Wrex as the watch dog in the plaza during their endeavors to incriminate Anoleas. After a few instances of breaking and entering, they'd succeeded and had evidence to show for it. All the while, the comm. link between Shepard and the krogan had remained eerily silent. He hadn't checked in, though Shepard hadn't requested periodic status reports. Wrex was no product of the Alliance and would laugh in the face of any such introduced protocol. She had to settle for faith in this case, hoping the battlemaster hadn't defected, gone AWOL, or otherwise terrorized the local population.

On the other hand, Joker and Tali had done a much better job at notifying Shepard of even the most minute updates on the Mako's status. If even so much as a new screw was introduced, the quarian was on the line and buzzing about exhaust outputs and rotation cuffs for their brand new thrusters. Joker was better about providing an accurate ETA, which currently had them scheduled to drop the Mako just outside the garage in roughly two minutes. Everything up above had gone surprisingly well with few hiccups during the installation. Now more than ever, Shepard wanted to break in their latest acquisition and leave this forsaken port behind. She'd been on edge, waiting for the ERC to strike from some dark corner, though she knew only stupidity would drive them to take action with unbiased witnesses. Still, a threat was a threat. Civilians be damned.

They returned to the main level of the plaza, but Shepard couldn't pick out the hulking creature among the sparse crowd scattered across the viewing deck.

"Hope he didn't get bored and… kill something," she mumbled and opened his comm. channel while Garrus advanced a few steps ahead of her.

"Wrex, Mako's due in a minute. Where are you?"

She paused, but seconds passed and no reply came. Shepard tried once more, "Wrex, you copy?"

"Shepard."

The imperative tone gave her a start. Her head snapped left and up, eyes falling on Garrus' stern face. Wrex was the object of interest now, not whatever thought had popped into the turian's brain, Still, there was that look… the bad kind.

"What is it? I can't get-," she began.

Garrus didn't let her finish.

"One," he practically whispered; and urgent sound that made her blood run cold.

"One?" Shepard repeated dumbly, feeling the power of the word but not quite knowing… Only sensing.

Garrus inclined his head over hers, indicating to the northernmost exit, leading towards the outer hall and down to the garage. She pivoted slowly around, looking for the source of their shared dread. A pair of dock workers walked into her line of sight, skewing the doorway for a moment. They passed and revealed a sight that froze her there, lips parting in unspoken alarm.

Her earpiece burst to life as Joker opened the channel, static in her ear, "The Mako is good to go, commander. We're making the drop in the specified location. Good luck, Shepard."

Shepard had no words of thanks. No affirmation or direction for her airborne crew. She had failed to count. She hadn't taken immediate notice upon their return and now… there were none to count.

Almost none.

All she could focus on then was the lone asari Elanus Risk Control agent leaning casually beside the garage exit, sporting a sickening smile. The blue-skinned created braced one hand on her hip.

The other was draped possessively over Wrex's Rosenkov Mats shotgun.

--

_Cliffhanger. YOU'RE WELCOME! But actually, I'm sorry. I know where I'm going with this so you'll just have to stick with it. If you still care by now._


	10. Chapter 10

_**Author's Notes**__: I'm a junior in college and that has made updating really… hard. But there's only a month or so if school left, which means regular summer updates. Thanks to everyone who's been keeping up with this stuff. I plan to finish what I started. This is a shorter chapter, but I think I planned it like this? Just need to get this boat moving again. The next chapter will be exactly what I've been dying to write for months._

_On another note, I'm totally obsessed with BSG and Bill Adama is my hero. Holy crap._

_Bioware's announced ME2. I think we all know just how awesome this is… Now if only they'd sell me the rights and make me some merch._

_Sometimes when I go to sleep, I dream that I own Mass Effect. Then I wake up and cry because that is so epic fail. ;_;_

_-------------------------------------------------_

_She had this all-consuming fascination with threads It was ill-advised, utterly droll, and purposeless. It was a sad descent into boredom. Thousands of them, weaved together tightly to make their singularity irrelevant; the finished product was a masterpiece, a sample of simple genius as each fiber entwined with innumerable partners, tangled carefully to form a cohesive, purposeful unit. However, the fray at the edge of her dress shirt was corroding the mystery, revealing the science and machinery behind the art. Short-nailed fingers toyed with the broken edges, pulling at the breaking seam despite the nagging voice begging her to leave it be, not to make the matter worse. Still, those soft blue strings sang their siren song and she unwove the woven, watching as the tips of the fibers split further, revealing each miniscule string, each fragile, forgettable part._

_This was no doubt destructive, but the body had overcome the mind. Her infatuation with such a minute problem prolonged her involvement as the tiny fray spread at her urging. It was so basically fulfilling, discovering the simplicity of each component, the basis of the garments she took for granted; fragile and pliable under the softest of touches. _

_How elegantly it unwound._

_-------------------------------------------------_

The asari's back connected with the wall and she barked and gasp in quick succession, sucking in quickly as she tried to refill her lungs with the hair forced out by the blow. Shepard allowed her little time to recover as a gloved hand grasped the alien by the collar and yanked her forward. The agent stumbled, slumped in a daze as Shepard abandoned her beloved pistol in favor of a drawn fist. Her knuckles connected with a blue cheek, sending the woman reeling yet again into the hard, bare concrete of the wall. The asari had abandoned the shotgun long ago, but Shepard couldn't possibly forget it lying so comfortably on the floor.

She bent to sweep it up and in a swift motion, bared the butt of it to the asari, whose eyes gaped in horror as the impossible realization stole her words. The first blow sent a shock through Shepard, unprepared for the recoil of her own strike. But the hesitation was absent. She struck a second time and heard the satisfying crack of bone beneath her fingertips. The third robbed the asari of her footing, send the blue creature to the floor in a broken heap.

Down didn't necessarily mean submission in Shepard's book. The blunt strikes continued until Shepard could no longer lift her arms any higher, frowning at her own limbs' refusal to obey. She tested them once more and looked up, only to find clawed hands gripping at her forearms, fighting for possession of the weapon she'd been using as a club.

Garrus' eyes triggered her reflexes and her hands flew open as if on springs, relinquishing the weapon into his grasp. The heaving breaths were hers, not the asari's. The woman lay motionless on the ground and Shepard finally understood that the two bloodied bodies strewn down the hallway were her handiwork. As far as she could tell, there was only one entry wound on the first asari, and it had not been a fatal one. The damage had been dealt a cruder manner than she ever thought herself capable of… and Garrus' expression mirrored the exact thought.

Shame assailed her first, followed by embarrassment. She had no words to defend herself, though she couldn't otherwise claim the deaths to be unjust. A member of her team had been compromised and the asari had practically asked for Shepard's fist-to-face response the moment she'd decided to taunt the Commander with Wrex's shotgun.

Which was now in her possession and lacking the proper wielder.

Garrus placed the gun in its brackets on the back of his suit, setting his rifle just across it as his eyes never left Shepard. The two stood in their awkward silence as Shepard scrounged for words, though knew well enough that even a simple uttered apology would earn her a swift reprimand. Followed by a reminder of just how royally she'd fucked up. Whatever morality she'd forged over the years had flown down the garbage chute as soon as she made up her mind to kill the asari.

Garrus wasn't waiting for prompt, it seemed, and broke the silence.

"We need to fall back."

Shepard cocked an eyebrow at him, momentarily forgetting the lashing she was due, "Fall back? Are you insane? Wrex is out there somewhere going through God-knows-what and-"

"Shepard, you just beat a woman to death with your bare hands," Garrus snapped in reponse.

But Shepard was on the defensive now, brow furrowing indignantly. "I had a damn shotgun!"

"Not her," he jerked his head towards the asari she'd long forgotten, lying motionless a few feet behind them. "That one. You strangled _her._"

Shepard had no memory of any such attack, but Garrus refused to resort to hand to hand combat unless he had no other weapons nearby. The dead were her burden; the C-Sec agent couldn't have brought about such an outcome. His words made this scenario feel so strange, so inappropriate… but it was his steel gaze that both quelled and suppressed her as he approached her, forcing the customary gap between them to shrink sharply.

"What's the matter with you?" He hissed, voice crackling against her skin like static, forcing her to feel the reprimand more so than hear it. He was out of line and ignoring rank, but she didn't challenge it. The words were overdue. It was uncomfortable, restless, and made her want to unzip her skin and walk out.

She had questions of her own and would not crumble beneath his scrutiny.

"Why didn't you stop me then?" She snarled, a predator on the defensive. The cornered sensation threatened her composure as she began to bare teeth. "You watched it happen. You were right there… tell me, if it was such an offense to you, why didn't you fuckin' make me stop?"

His mandibles shuddered, an oddly agitated motion. His mouth remained closed and she seized the silence.

"What difference does it make how I do it as long as somebody dies? They've got Wrex… they're in the way. They go _down_. I don't care how."

She didn't like his expression. She loathed how his eyes almost softened, regarding her her with such condescension, such pity. Might as well have been a scorned child, caught red handed by a disappointed parent. He looked upon her as if she was made of so much more than she was, failing to fulfill potential. The questioning in his expression bothered her, made her want to grab him by the collar and throw him against the wall until he assured her she was right, that she had every right to enact her revenge and be the brutal tool she was trained to be.

Shepard was running out of options, though. She couldn't fail again. Instead, she forced the thought to the back of her mind, throat tight as she pushed past the rage.

"Got to keep moving, Vakarian…" She muttered lips stiff and uncooperative in her quest to string words together into confident sentences.

"Keep moving? Move where? Into the ambush with fists flailing? You'll get us both killed, Shepard… and I don't share your death wish," he snapped.

But her feet moved without her permission, taking her further down the ramp. Garrus' hand clasped her arm and held her still in a vice-like grip. The force of such simple contact wracked her spine with shivers as the sudden physical awareness of his prowess threatened her. This was a hold she'd not break free of so easily. If he wanted her to take her leave, by all means, he'd allow it… but his fingers closed around her hard suit like iron, shifting the balance of power and pushing Shepard further towards the precipice; the edge dropping off into an abyss she dare not stare into.

"This won't work," he stated heatedly, searching her face for some kind of affirmation.

She had no such submission for him. Shepard met his eyes once more and accepted the unspoken challenge as she had before.

"Let go," she demanded flatly.

There was a dangerous pause in which no one moved a muscle. Garrus so closely resembled a stalking predator that she half-expected him to suddenly bare fangs and burst forward in an attack pounce. But this was a sentient creature with his own set of morals and rules, a victim of the effects of hierarchy. His mandibles twitched as his grip loosened, allowing Shepard to slip her arm through and regain control.

"Commander-"

"Garrus, you'll live through this if you do right by me… but you have to trust me…" her voice wavered so minutely, she wondered briefly if he'd be able to pick up on such a slight slip. Her own confidence was a delicate matter at the moment, grappling with the harsh logic that so plainly told her that she would not maintain Garrus' obedience if she continued on this slapdash path.

But her options were withering away just as steadily as the turian's hand slipping from her arm.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_If I didn't have the will, I would have fallen out of the system long ago. I would have disappeared along with the rest of the washouts. I didn't… and no. I don't act alone. I didn't get this far on my own mettle. No one does. I had enough to survive, but not enough to pull me up and onto the highroad. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

The walkway narrowed as they ran, but Shepard cared little for the development. She proceeded with blinders, knowing only forward and the promise of retribution. The walls no longer resembled the intentional appearance of an industrial passage, but a haphazardly tunnel piercing through the ice. Shepard knew in the back of her mind they had traveled far from the familiar threat of Port Hanshan into something unorthodox, a sinister place. Her better judgment screamed for reason, begging her to return for help, to regroup and consider the safety of her remaining charge. But the cries for vengeance drowned out the sense, her bloodlust- stronger. The mouth of the passageway spat them into a cave-like formation, hastily carved out of the planet's frozen crust. The tunnel became a hanging gangway, suspended by a few precariously placed cables forced into the cave's ceiling. Below the sloped path, at least a dozen people were moving crates onto several rovers.

This was a hateful rock, a reverie to those seeking the protection of a system at war with itself. Shepard squinted through her visor, gritting her teeth as her HUD confirmed the identities of the armed guards below her platform. ERC agents littered the area, stationed at every possible exit.

"Commander!" Garrus half-shouted, his tone unsettling to the point of nausea. But she saw the source of his trepidation, the ominous sign… the mark of their demise.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_They dragged me through the mud, put me through hell and made me run laps around the lake of fire… but it didn't end there. It should have been the end… not the stepping stone in turned out to be. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

Simultaneously, the floor agents turned around… asari, turians… a few humans thrown into the mix… The sea of eyes struck her, a wave of the stark realization that she had been so terribly wrong, so damn foolish and brash. Her heart froze and fell from her chest, as the knowledge of what she had just doomed Garrus to struck her. The gangway they stood upon snapped as gravity called the structure towards it, deeper into the core. A cable had been struck in the firefight, shaking their foundation as she saw the metal fibers of the cable splay out. Then it snapped, a deafening shot in and of itself as the whole path sloped. By some miracle and blessing of her grip, she kept her balance, but the inevitable bore down upon her; the only option left was down.

In that moment, silence; time progressed at a viscous pace, matter moving so minutely. It seemed that something so simple as turning her head to see Garrus took eons, a myriad of apologies and regrets spinning in her eyes. She could only hope that the elongated instant was enough for her to convey her remorse to the turian she had sentenced to death. All at once, pretense fell as his eyes found hers, cold and certain of what had befallen them. She saw in him her promises withering, drowning, spiraling into nothing as her oath to protect pounded in her ears, mocking her. All she had done, all she had failed to do assaulted her at once, brutalized her resolve until it fell away with the very floor she stood upon. The reverie ended as time lurched forward, overcompensating for the moment it granted her to swallow her mistakes with full knowledge of the consequences. Space collapsed upon her with immeasurable pressure as the sound of their crashed exploded around them. The cable snapped and the end facing the cave dipped violently downward, knocking Shepard off her feet and sideways into the failing walkway, knocking the breath from her lungs.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_We're nothing without other people to push us along. If we had the potential to be a one-man army, we'd have no need for each other… for a unit, platoon… whatever._

_-------------------------------------------------_

An indistinguishable order echoed through the complex as the sound of metal scraping against screeching metal nearly deafened her, shots flying indiscriminately. Hands scrambled for a grip, the texture padding of her gloves offering little traction against the smooth surface. The blessing of a stick grip failed when faced with the task of keeping Shepard from falling at the ninety degree angle. Screams echoed from below her as another crash resounded from the ice walls. The certainty of their survival had already been shaken; the foreboding sound could do little more.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_If a man is completely and utterly self-reliant and self-built, he has no need for more. But this is imaginary man, ideal soldier, a creature built up from dreams of perfection. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

Garrus slid downward, groping for something to hold him fast. Shepard glanced downwards, eyeing the scattered agents as they appeared to flee. Darkness swallowed up ice… a deep fissure in the surface widening as the rover crashed into the side of it. Shepard assumed the disaster zone below her was due to a few stray bullets in the crossfire. The suspension cables must have been supporting much more than a walkway, judging by the damaged crates littering the mouth of the opening.

Garrus screamed at her, snapping her to attention as he found a foothold.

"Hold on!"

Their dangling safety collapsed as the cable burst and they fell. She imagined several scenarios in the instant; a fateful collision with the mouth of the cavern, a snapped neck and swift demise… or a slow, lingering death littered with broken bones and a looming agent prodding her with the barrel of a gun. But Garrus…? The prospect of her own death was much easier to swallow. The thought of his broken body sprawled before the enemy was like trying to force down bile. She couldn't. She refused.

In that moment, she gripped his forearm with all the strength she could gather, holding onto him as though her hold would keep him among the living, as long as she didn't let go. His eyes passed hers as they fell down, down into the screaming cavern, past the ERC goons and into the darkness. Still, she held fast to the last of her crew.

Her back connected with solid, but still, she fell. Turian and human descended rapidly into disorientation. Finally, there was support, but the motion did not cease. They were sliding impossibly fast, bumping from side to side of some form of tube, a subterranean tunnel crafted from years or erosion and water drainage. They were at the mercy of the planet's whims, following the frozen titan into its greatest depths.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_We are the reality; the specimen of our true condition… and we don't get here on our own. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

Shepard feared the end of their ride, for fear of being spit out into yet another gaping cave… There was no way to slow their progress. All she could do was thank the maker of her enviro-suit for climate control… for as long as that would last. The darkness thinned as light trickled in, pupils widening to accept the new sights. The blinding blue of their tubes waned as the tunnel burst into a gaping cavern, sending them rolling onto the icy floor. She braced, insisted on her grip and closed her eyes, letting the breath spill from her mouth.

The shock of the impact was short-lived as adrenaline urged her upwards, pressuring her to take inventory, to understand her surroundings. But she was so comfortably curled up on her side, letting the waves of pain wash over her and faded. Her hands found support beneath her as she pushed her torso upwards. The dimness offered little features of note. The cave was dark, pure ice, and pierced with openings of horizontal tunnels. None of which seemed to lead towards civilization. She rose to her feet, blissfully numb to whatever damage her low extremities had taken. There was a stiffness in her ankle that tempted her to limp and favor the limb, but she kept upright and removed her helmet, letting it fall gracelessly to the floor. Her eyes settled on Garrus' still form.

Her reactions seemed as frozen as their cage; still, quiet and cold. Shepard regarded him slowly as she inched towards him, step by step. She fell to a knee, eyes scanning his body for changes of note. It was like observing a long-lost, species, a creature thought missing in time's shadow. She was an observer, purveyor of archeology beholding a remnant of an age forgotten. When her hand wandered without her permission and felt the hardness of his chin, the synapses came to life and screamed for her to take action.

"Garrus?" She urged, fingers moving with purpose as she manually searched for a pulse.

Her knowledge of turian anatomy was limited, forcing her to consult the suits life support system. She searched the neck panel, scrolling through the turian notations with some frustration. She lacked a functioning understanding of the language and there didn't seem to be much of a translation function. Despite her efforts, she garnered little from her exam, noting only the slow, uneven breathing.

Shepard felt somewhat relieved, thankful she wouldn't be tasked to find the defibrillation function on an alien hard suit… but this left her at a crossroads: what could she do?

"Garrus, come on," she commanded, hands cradling his exposed neck.

Shepard felt herself falling forward, chest pressed to Vakarian's as a heavy pressure forced her forward. Whether exhaustion or the sudden relief that they'd evaded death was the reason for her collapse, she cared not. Her face was uncomfortably close to the hardsuit's frontal control panel, the cold surface of the armor offering nothing in the way of comfort. Garrus showed no indication that he could hear her, nor did he exhibit any change in his condition. Shepard listened to the harsh breathing, trying to find a pattern, something to soothe her fears. Each breath was a shard of hope, that he may get up at any moment, look her in the eye and urge them onward. But he was unaware and unresponsive, lost in whatever dream had stolen his consciousness. She would have given anything to be there, to work through whatever nightmare held him as long as it meant company.

"I'm sorry… I'm so sorry Garrus", Shepard muttered, her whispers swallowed up by the emptiness of the cavern. She was fully aware of the futility of her apology. Part of her hoped that in his unconsciousness, he would hear her, understand that she meant none of this. Another arrogant portion wished otherwise, unwilling to admit she'd made any mistake. But her failure was obvious. She had refused to follow protocol, charged forward blindly with a member of her crew in tow. She endangered herself along with the turian agent. Shepard had forgotten her purpose, her duty… and now, she faced the very real possibility that Garrus would never wake up. The enviro-suit was most likely the turian's last defense against the cold… and she could only hope quietly to herself that the power cells would hold out after the impact.

Until then, there was nothing but the waiting. Shepard wouldn't proceed until her partner was awake and prepared to travel. There was nothing but the soft persistence of the enviro-suit's life support and Garrus' rasping breath to accompany her as she rested against the motionless turian. She just needed some time to catch her breath… some time to rest.

In that moment, she knew there had to be no lonelier place in the galaxy than in the frigid grasp of Noveria.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_It's the others that build us up and carry us when we've fallen… forgotten our way. When we lose that, we lose everything. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

Heeeeey. Review so I remember why I write. Puh-lease?


	11. Chapter 11

_**Author's Note: **__It's been waaaay too long in the works. I finally finished my second semester and this chapter just inched along. Holy crap. Also, I'M GOING TO COMICON OMG!!!_

_I'm still on track… I think… I just need a few more chapters to get me back into a comfortable place. Thank you for being patient with me. Not gonna lie, I'm incredibly distracted with an idea for a new Mass Effect story, NOT Shepard-related. I'm not going to touch it or do anything remotely word-y with it until I wrap MO up. _

_I tried to edit this time around. I did this late at night though, so… preemptive "whoops" for whatever I missed._

_I follow Mass Effect 2 on Twitter. I don't own Bioware, but it certainly owns me. Thanks for giving me these terribly tough choices, B-Ware._

_-------------------------------------------------_

Time slithered across them, snaking through the icy fissures and deep into the cracks of their glacial confines. Even the lifeless rock beneath them aged with each passing millisecond; another inch of the planet's rotation. If in that moment, their orbit ceased and the course around the sun became a thing of the past, life would move on. Existence would continue with or without that solar body and they would be none the wiser if the flaring star failed to rise. Shepard was no astrophysicist, but the permanence of such a concept was very deeply instilled within her. Despite this concrete knowledge, she still could not believe that the faint glow of her HUD's clock continued to change with each passing second, though she and her partner remained motionless. Time should have been relative to action, a counter of movement and achievement. It was, however, unforgiving and relentless, an unchanging tempo in the universe's grand chorus. She eyed the helmet, which now sat beside her, upturned to show off the frequency display, just in case the impossible rescue occurred. There was a vicious-looking crack in the visor that she attributed to the failure of her advanced tracking unit. The cave might as well have been made of lead- she had virtually zero visibility on her sensors. Her life support and damn clock seemed to be the only things functioning properly on her Guardian model. Garrus, however, seemed worse for wear.

The turian suit's once-illuminated life support reader had gone dim and quiet. Shepard had been checking his vital tracker obsessively, fidgeting with the hardware every few moments and hoping to illicit some kind of response. The system seemed shot, though, despite all her fussing. She had taken to making intentionally destructive changes in the thing, just to see if she could work out even the faintest of alarms, but it was all in vain. For all the tinkering she had once done in her spare time, she couldn't raise a turian support system from the dead. Instead, she had to settle in place as a watch dog, sitting awkwardly cross-legged beside Garrus as she waited for him to awaken. It wasn't just the concern for his well-being that had her itching to shake him and speed up the process. He had failed to explain long ago _why_ exactly the ERC had it in for her, or how he could have obtained this information in the first place. She had discerned long ago on the Citadel that he was an exceptional agent and apt detective, but Noveria was way off C-Sec's radar. Someone would have to be intentionally targeting the system and siphoning specific information from a planetoid of some kind. She doubted he was making frequent trips to Hanshan… There was always the possibility of some kind of remote collaboration. After all, the ERC was, in essence, a security task force obligated to maintain the peace in the port. Shepard wanted to believe that there was at least one agent who had resisted going crooked. Her speculations would remain until the turian could make sense of it all.

She couldn't remember the last time she had wanted to talk to someone so badly.

Earlier, she'd been afraid to move Garrus for fear of exaggerating any injuries he could have sustained during the fall. Turians were hard-plated creatures, but she was unsure of the extent of such protection. The armor couldn't have just been for show… otherwise she would have done… something more, something endearing-like. However, the hours were passing regardless and she was restless. Shepard uncrossed her legs and inched towards him, knee caps scraping against the ice as she knelt at his head with a soft exhale.

"Wake up, Garrus. You've got a lot of explaining to do."

Her own voice seemed offensive, an intrusion on the sacred silence of her brand new ice palace. She'd never enjoyed the rather deep-set, plain tone. Shepard would never be a shrill bird sitting at a desk, taking calls back in the Sol system, nor would she ever don the dress skirt of a working woman. She was military, N7, and better off for it. This was her mantra and it would do her well… Very well in the years to come, if she ever saw them.

Garrus' was much less abrasive. But she couldn't stop.

"I don't know how you did it… actually, I have… ideas… But a little foresight would have been wonderful. This cave would have been especially nice to know about. I'd have packed dinner or something."

'_Not that we could share the same meal what with your biology being all… weird.'_

The mental image was far more amusing than it should have been. Either the cold was having some adverse effect on her sensibilities, or she was sporting psychological cracks much deeper than she could have possibly anticipated. Perhaps Shepard really was losing her grip. How else could this have happened? She was trapped in an ice pocket with an unconscious turian without an operating radio. Why would she have left Wrex alone in the-

' _Wrex…'_

Her stomach lurched forward, bile churning as she grasped her knees. For a moment, Shepard thought she might wretch as the weight of her mistakes struck her. These operatives were her charge; not agents for hire. She had thought Wrex to be highly capable; a dying breed of formidable warriors. He had overcome great odds, taken countless lives. She was allowed to let him venture out on his own, right? Or did the lessons of the past weigh in everywhere? Was everyone so desperate for a rescue? And why, of all people, was she the only lifeline in sight? There were no alternatives out here. It always seemed to be a cold sun that illuminated the day out on the fringes of space… Vacant and alone with no laws save for the ones they created and lived by. She had to be the authority and her credentials supported this, but never had she felt so unprepared for a responsibility. She answered to the Council, but they would not shield her from her own mistakes, nor would they offer guidance that did not eventually serve to satiate their own needs. The Alliance forces weren't quite sure what to do with her. Hackett and Anderson seemed to be the last two officers in the entire navy that remembered her humanity, though they held so fast to their own agendas that she scarcely knew whether or not they understood that she was not invincible. Anderson's crusade to destroy Saren could be blinding at times, forcing Shepard to measure his words when emotion seemed to get the best of him. And Hackett, well… a high-ranking Alliance admiral had more pressing matters. To him, Shepard was an invaluable tool with an aptitude for silencing the galaxy's noisier pests. She had countless duties to perform and distress calls to answer, but the crew that gave her the nerve to follow through was falling apart while she sat idle.

She had invested too much into independence and instinct. She had survived too much to go down quietly, to die as the woman lost in the planet that time forgot.

"Time's up…" She muttered, reaching for the collar of her hardsuit.

Shepard found the fastener and hastily wrenched the protective layer down, revealing the form-fitting, insulating suit. The skin below Garrus' plating was cold to the touch, a death sentence if that low temperature was maintained. She knew enough from her years of touring to understand that the turian core temperature needed to be quite high by human standards if they were to function. If he was cold, he'd never awaken. She had to find a way to jump start life support if this was going to work… or at least get him warm enough to wake up and fix the problem himself. Body heat was out of the question; it wouldn't transfer through the suit and she had no way to remove his entirely. There had to be some way to make this work without charring flesh or melting the cave around them.

The idea came swiftly and vaguely at first, but the concept alone seemed like enough to warrant an effort. She pulled her arms from the sleeves and removed her gloves. It took a good deal of effort and she found that the suit's interior seemed to radiate heat; proof of just how screwed she would be without the temperature control in the freezing world. Still, it was capable of more. She had a small console on the interior of the collar meant for minor adjustments before entering the intended environment. She changed a few variables and manually reset the exterior temperature, though the suit found this complicated. Still, she managed to override its most basic function and soon enough, the waves of heat began to spill over. She fumbled with Garrus' outer shell for a moment, but found that the insulation came away after a few moments of her urging. It was a complicated mess and she was almost positive that she had broken a hinge or fastening of some sort, but she had the credits to buy him three replacements if he was that distraught about it.

Shepard was taken aback by what she found, though she had only a moment to examine his anatomy. Garrus had no real plating to speak of and his chest cavity did distantly resemble a human's in some respect, but it was virtually all sinew and muscle; a compact cage protecting the vital organs within. There was something undeniably fierce about it, though she knew well enough that prolonged exposure to radiation had made it more fragile than the eye could perceive. With little time left for ogling, she crawled over him, arms braced against the ice on either side. It was an oddly exposed position, but it seemed to be the most effective method for heat transfer. Her palms slipped as the ice beneath her fingers grew slick; the surface layer of ice melting. The next few moments were guaranteed to be brutal and probably awful… but the time had come to reap what she had sown. It would just feel like hell's skillet.

It was a steady pressure first, then it exploding into something fierce and unforgiving. While her upper body had the opposing cold factor, anything left within the suit boiled. Her legs felt as though they were being seared while spandex top she wore grew damp with sweat. Shepard practically collapsed on top of Garrus, breathing heavier as her tried to fill her lungs with the cold air while the molten heat transferred to Garrus. She didn't know the exact temperature necessary to revive him, but the flashing collar console told her that one hundred degrees was getting particularly dangerous to maintain. She began to pant softly while she baked, her weight now resting completely upon Garrus while she let her head rest just below his collar, trying to remember why she had deemed this a good idea.

In the back of her mind, she wondered just how ridiculous she looked in the compromising position. The rest of her mind screamed, begging to know why it was so damn hot. With a defeated groan, she relented and fumbled for the collar, frantically reducing the temperature to something much lower and much more human friendly. Shepard lay in a heap atop Garrus, heaving for a moment as she waited, reluctant to test her legs lest they wobble and fail beneath her. Suddenly, the surface shifted as the chest beneath her rose and fell sharply. A croak and gasp heralded Garrus' triumphant return to the living. A desperate eye drifted upwards, watching as the turian gaped, saying nothing. Her own lips failed to connect as she continued to pant softly. She pushed herself up, palms finding the ice once again. The surface was just as slippery as before and she faltered, collapsing once more against him. This time, an armored limb found her and draped across her back, talons splayed across the hot outer layer of her overworked hardsuit. It was unconscionable, unseemly, and so inexplicably comforting that in that moment, something deep within Shepard softened. A part of her so resistant to the sweltering heat, but malleable under an alien touch. It did frighten her minutely, but God, something in the unconscious touch assured her that no matter how dark the night, dawn would always break.

Damned be the soul who dared challenge her moment of poetry. She had earned a few seconds of weakness after so many years in the service, even though the solace came at the hands of a species once thought to be the scourge of humanity… for two whole months.

"Can you speak?" Shepard asked as she tried once more to prop herself up with renewed insistence. Still, the weight of his arm remained her back.

"Ah… yes…" he rasped before clearing his throat, the vocal flanging amplifying the words and filling the cave with the welcome sounds of life. He finally reclaimed his limbs as she sat up and back on her knees. The warmth disappeared quickly, leaving her to rapidly chill outside the protective cushioning of her suit. Her teeth began to chatter as she wriggled back into the sleeves, sweat quickly freezing against her. Shepard began to put herself back together.

"We have to find a way out of here. I'm not picking up any local frequencies… Normandy's out of range… and we've got to get Wrex."

Garrus absorbed this in silence as he sat up with a groan, eyeing the evidence of Shepard's ingenuity while he put his suit back together, talons deftly reaching for controls she never knew existed.

"… But first, you're going to tell me why the ERC wants me dead. I know there's more to this than you're letting on, so let's just cut right to it."

Garrus was composed and ready; recovering much faster than she had anticipated. Meanwhile, she was still on her knees, finding the strength to rise. The turian was beside her almost instantly, gloved fingers encircling her upper arm as he pulled her up, urging her to find her footing. When she stumbled, he offered the support of a hand at her waist, straightening her in an unusually domineering manner. There was something slightly mechanical about his movement and his silence suggested he was still not entirely himself.

"Garrus…?" She tested, eyeing the brave hands he'd placed on her person. She lacked the nerve to call him on it. Frankly, Shepard believed she could use the physical support in that moment.

"The Second Strike," he stated calmly as he let her slip from his grasp, steel blue eyes still locked on her form, sending a chill down her spine that had nothing to do with the cold. There was something very predatory there that she hadn't seen before; a viscous intent she couldn't quite decipher. Shepard knew very well there was a line between them, but that look whispered threads, a desire to cross it and she wasn't sure what sort of motivation compelled him to do so. It made her wary, uncertain of the turian she once thought to be a beacon of safety.

But then the ghosts of her past came charging in; an unwelcome cavalry.

"They were neutralized years ago. How could that-" Shepard began, but Garrus was unusually curt.

"You cut off a vital limb long ago, Shepard… didn't sever the head. You merely taught them the value of subtlety. I intercepted a hit list shortly before I relayed the warning to you… and I believe they've infiltrated the ERC and are trafficking steroids to Salarian separatists in this system."

Shepard hesitated, working through the spiking rage that seized her.

"Would you mind explaining to me why this story and the one you told me back there are so very, very different?" Her voice strained.

Garrus chose not to look at her and instead busied himself with the purposeless task of reintegrating his suit's exoskeleton module.

"You're at the top," Garrus muttered, evasive.

"That doesn't surprise me. Why did you keep this to yourself?" Shepard didn't skip a beat.

But Garrus dithered, letting the silence descend once more. Just before Shepard could bark demands, he relinquished.

"I'm not entirely sure. Maybe it was some effort on my part not to add to the burden of the mission. If the situation was contained, then why make an issue of it," he seemed earnestly downtrodden.

"Garrus, if something's on my six, tell me to check my six. Don't ever assume you're doing me a favor by keeping me in the dark."

He was suddenly staring at her as his head snapped around, the flanging of his voice increasing with his agitation. "I made a mistake. I threw my better judgment out the window and I regret the decision I made. I'm trying my damndest to stop beating myself up for it, Shepard. It just isn't something I take lightly. I'm sorry. You're going to have to give me this one."

She didn't know what to make of his sudden change of demeanor or the electricity rippling in the air that had her so fascinated. For once, it was Shepard who let her gaze fall, unexpectedly discomfited by the intensity of his stare. A complete pardon was not something she took lightly. In this case, Garrus _had _erred and the result looked like worst case scenario. He hadn't earned a pat on the back and she didn't believe she owed him any forgiveness. She could merely offer an understanding that would hopefully satisfy whatever validity he needed. Shepard just wasn't the hand-holding type.

"I'll trust you not to make the same mistake twice," she grunted.

Garrus' mandibles twitched as he turned swiftly once more to gaze at their frozen enclosure. Her answer appeared to have appeased him, as he seemed to be evaluating matters of greater importance.

"We better get out of here. I'm not a big fan of the cold," he sighed, removing a small, handheld device from his back bracket.

Shepard arched a brow as he lifted the device to the wall, where it stuck and began to pulse softly.

"Aren't you full of surprises?" she ventured at humor, though her words seemed painfully deadpan.

"Sonar meters aren't exactly standard issue at C-Sec… but this always seemed like it might come in handy someday," Garrus activated his omni-tool and began scrolling through various screens and readouts until he was satisfied with a luminescent grid.

"You're a regular boy scout," she muttered just under her breath, retrieving her frost-spattered helmet from the cavern's floor.

"We don't appear to have fallen too far. There's a considerable lacking of any kind of solid mass through here… but there should be a reserve generator station running parallel to us. We just have to blow through this wall… which should be south if my instrumentation is still calibrated," he removed the device and took a step back, offering the ice an appraising stare.

"I got a couple of nades on me," Shepard reached for her belt, removing the first explosive. She wasn't an expert in this field, but she had a damn strong hunch that anything stronger than a single-source explosion might send their quaint little prison crashing down on them.

Garrus didn't challenge her, taking the offered grenade without asking for the second.

"This should be fine as long as we can concentrate the blast," Garrus said as he removed a generous amount of omni-gel from his side canister, slathering the device with adhesive and placing it firmly against the wall.

Shepard trusted Garrus' technical expertise, having seen him in action on multiple impressive occasions. He could overload a geth blaster from yards away while the thing exploded in the AI's lifeless claws. Still, she was always standing a safe distance away when the blasts went off and there wasn't a whole lot of cover inside the cavern. She engaged her shield boost as subtly as she could manage, but the soft hum of the power cells coming to life had Garrus craning his head around to give her an indiscernible look. Shepard might have called it indignation had he possessed the facial muscles to express the human equivalent.

She shrugged, "No offense."

Garrus shook his head and punched in the timer. He hesitated before activating his own shields and hustled back to Shepard, muttering.

"None taken."

_-------------------------------------------------_

"_What the _fuck _was that?!" O'Callahan shouted as the entire humvee swayed sharply to the right. _

_The blow knocked Toombs into the side of his door, wrenching a surprised yelp from him as Shepard shot upright, hands braced on the console as she squinted into the bleakness on the other side of the windshield._

_Again, something impacted the side of the vehicle and the sound of straining metal sent Shepard's red flags flying. She swept up her helmet and pulled her visor down. She spun around, pulling herself up to see the four marines in the back scrambling to get a secure position. Toombs' two boys were swarthy-skinned marines who typically only expressed boredom, but the violent rocking of the humvee had them wide-eyed and noticeably paler. The colonel had assured her that these soldiers held their own and kept cool heads, but a quick glance at Lao and Aguila was enough to make her throw out Toombs' testimonial. O'Callahan, however, was stern-faced and strapping in. She had given the servicemen little thought and knew virtually nothing as to their training and background; all she knew for certain was they had passed basic and qualified for something more glamorous than mess service. But they were fumbling around, unprepared and helmet-less._

"_Buckets on! Masks up!" Shepard shouted over the din of the storm, gripping the back of her seat tightly as a milder thrust shoved them sideways. She tapped against the surface of her own when the boys in the back didn't seem to get the message and closed the support mask, opening her close-range channel. O'Callahan was in her ear first, fully-suited up and plugged into to reserve oxygen. _

_Toombs was multitasking with the console's readouts as he struggled with his own bucket. He was in her ear soon after._

"_I'm picking up seismic activity here. We'll have to hold until it passes. I can boost the shields to-_

"

"_Belay that," Shepard ordered, "We're scrubbing this mission. O'Callahan, is your short-wave working?"_

_Toombs turned to her sharply, but she waved him off as O'Callahn clicked in, "Barely, ma'am."_

"_Try to make contact with Goldberg or Brahams. We're getting out of here," She didn't expect much would come of it, but the effort had to be made._

"_Roger that," O'Callahan obediently began adjusting his frequencies as he cut out of her channel. Toombs took his place shortly after._

"_Shepard, we can't just-"_

_Whatever else Toombs had to say was swallowed up by the terrible clamor of the humvee. It felt as though the reinforced walls around them were caving in and the entire vehicle lurched forward. Shepard had her lap belt on, but failed to fasten the seat harness in time for the barrage that followed. The car pitched sideways and the pressure of her fastening barely held her in place. She was jerked violently downwards and she caught a fleeting glimpse of flailing limbs. The windshield shattered and shards of glass rained every which way as they tumbled through the violent mess. Shepard's head rattled as they spun, her stomach hurtling along with the vehicle. They came to rest sideways and Shepard was braced hard against the seat divider. Her limbs were unsteady, shaking in the aftermath of the most brutal strike against them. Sand billowed in and the humvee was no longer a secure place. She craned her head around. Aguila's head was slumped and he looked dangerously, blood splattered across the inside of his visor. Lao and O'Callahan were thrashing violently against the seats, working at their belts. Shepard unclipped her own as Toombs prepared to abandon the vehicle. When she remembered her place in that moment in time, she screamed into every open channel. _

"_Bail out! Move, move, move!!" and O'Callahan needed no urging. He leapt over the front seat as soon as he was free of his restraints. Toombs was soon to follow as they spilled through the front of the humvee, paying no heed to the glass scraping the paint from their shoulders. As soon as Lao leapt through, she braced herself for the flurries ahead and jumped from the console, shattered windshield crumbling beneath her armored fingers._

_Shepard had no idea what lay beyond the confines of their armored car, but the vehicle had been compromised and they couldn't risk dying a crushing death underneath compressed steel walls. Her heart had been in her throat since they'd lost radio contact and it hadn't left. It threatened to suffocate her now as she stood upright, recovering from the jump as she experienced the sheer force of the wind against her body. The weight of the weather was terrifying; she felt as though she might have blown away had her hardsuit not weighed so much. The visibility was God awful. She could barely make out the silhouettes of the three conscious soldiers. O'Callahan was virtually screaming into his short-wave, she could hear the strain in his voice but the volume was swallowed up by the storm._

"_I've got Goldberg, ma'am! They're less than a click north in the dunes!" _

_Gradually, they converged on each other and she could barely make out eyes behind visors, darting back and forth. Lao's voice came through._

"_What about Aguila!? We have to go back!"_

_Shepard turned, but there was nothing. The swarm of red and brown sand had completely obscured it and she wasn't about to let anyone wander into the chaotic sea. She did have a bias; she knew her people and understood their capabilities. She put their needs above others in just about any situation… but Aguila was an active part of this outpost as well and deserved more than she could offer right then and there. At that moment, Shepard considered Aquila as good as dead and the abandon scared her. But the situation had escalated… None of these soldiers were prepared for this and priorities had changed in an instant._

_Shepard tried to keep her voice stern when it threatened to crack, "He's gone, Lao."_

_The soldier's channel wavered, but she could hear him muttering through feedback, 'Oh God, oh God, oh God…'_

"_Shit…" Toombs growled._

_Shepard turned to O'Callahan, "What's their status?"_

"_First quake snapped their axel... I think I can patch you through, ma'am!"_

_The tightness in her throat loosened suddenly as she prepared to make contact, quietly thrilled to hear of their survival. Static faded in and out until a clear, feminine voice came in._

"_Shepard to Goldberg, do you copy?" _

_Hisses and clicks interrupted the formalities, but sure enough, she was alive, "-We're alive, The humvee's no good. We think we're within walking distance, ma'am…"_

_The line crackled, destroying precious facts. Still, she managed to break through._

"_-Bannon and Brahams! No go on th-"_

_Shepard viciously wanted to punch a skull in when Goldberg cut out. But at that point, fate decided to reveal its twisted smile as the storm waned and visibility improved. The ground beneath them instantly felt more stabile and the terrible roar of the winds died down. Her instrumentation showed little improvement, but she at least could make out a horizon line and that was enough to chase away a fraction of the panic. _

"_We gotta get Aguila… we gotta get him!" Lao was already one foot ahead of himself, eyes wild._

_Shepard cut him off before Toombs could answer, "Do you have visual?"_

_The four of them turned in step and sure enough, everything from the front doors up was visible, sprouting up from a thick bed of sand. _

"_Get the body, Lao," Toombs grunted, shooting Shepard and acid glare, which she ignored. It wasn't that she didn't respect the dead; quite the opposite. It was one of the traits that set humanity apart from the geth. It was simply a matter of survival. She still wasn't convinced that they were in the clear and instinct was compelling her to drive them onward. They could spare no time for prayers or tears._

_Goldberg burst through, snapping her to attention, "-You copy?"_

"_I read you, Goldberg. Can we locate Brahams' humvee?"_

"_We found them, ma'am. We're up on the dunes… damn if that storm didn't give us hell though. Sounds like some of the squad are concussed, but their humvee's still intact. I can see them from here…"_

_Shepard didn't need to hear any more, "Regroup with Brahams' squad and we'll rendezvous at your coordinates."_

"_Roger that, ma'am. Goldberg, out."_

_Shepard was already breathing easier, but the pit in her stomach didn't pass. Something irked her and a shiver struck her despite the uncomfortable heat. _

"_Orders, L.C.?" O'Callahan asked as he opened his face mask, sand leaking from the cracks of the shifting gears. _

_Shepard watched with narrowed eyes as Lao stumbled towards the ravaged vehicle._

"_Get Lao from the humvee and help him with Aguila… if he _can_ be helped. Don't know what we're going to be able to do with a body… We're hiking up to squads one and two while Toombs explains to me what the fuck just happened." _

"_Honestly, Shepard," Toombs snapped, visibly shaken, "I have no idea."_

_-------------------------------------------------_

Review for more chapters. Seriously. DO IT.


	12. Chapter 12

_******__If you are reading this, then I conquered the glitches. I apologize for the false e-mail updates.__******_

_**Author's Note**__: I was incredibly distracted from June to July preparing for the San Diego Comic Con, which was an absolute mind-blowing blast. I completely overhauled my twi'lek costume and I'm incredibly proud of the results. Sean and I scored two interviews for NBC and ABC. Yeah, I'm fucking excited about that._

_Unfortunately, Bioware had very limited ME2 representation, which broke my heart. However, Adam Baldwin (Jayne, Firefly), Colonel Tigh (Battlestar Galactica) and a bunch of other guests from the autograph booth were sporting ME2 t-shirts. This apparently spelled disaster for me, as I discovered that I am easily star-struck AND obsessed with Mass Effect, so I just wheezed with googly eyes at these famous people. Lame-tastic._

_I just started my last year of school. No victory laps for me. I'm almost out of here. Holy snaps._

_And I guess it's about time for me to start wrapping this business up._

_You are awesome readers and your reviews always make my day a little more candy-coated._

_Keep the sass coming._

_Hey Bioware… I looked for you at SDCC, but you were busy cheating on me. So I stole your franchise. SORRYNOT._

_-------------------------------------------------_

Their footing was surprisingly flat for a blasted cave fissure. The ice below them obviously had compounded over the years, but a few moments of careful scrutiny revealed a deposit of gray beneath them; steel lost underneath layer after layer of frozen water. If this was in fact and functional tunnel, it had been a good long while since anyone made use of it. While that promised them a secure getaway, it did nothing to assure Shepard of its reliability. People didn't just get bored of tunnels. But hey, they'd endured plenty of calamities today alone. What was one more death trap?

Garrus had been spot on with his calculations and the grenade blast had blown forward without any back shot debris. The passageway acted like a funnel, sucking in the force of it and drawing the ice inward rather than threatening the stability of the cave. They proceeded eagerly and wasted little time with caution as to the structural integrity of the path ahead. Garrus was referring to his omni tool every few feet, relaying notes to Shepard about distance, depth, life forms, and all those other integral details that she was trying very hard to commit to memory. While Garrus had made it his business to track their progress and be useful, she earned her worth by arming herself with Wrex's Rosenkov and tapping her helmet every few moments in a vain, rather childish attempt to restore the higher functions of her HUD. Frustration won out in the end and she hissed loudly, removing her helmet hastily. She could practically smell the cowlicks she'd revealed but lacked the vanity to do anything about them.

"Shit… Garrus, can you run a diagnostic on this?"

He nodded and opened up a new window, typing away in some indistinguishable pattern. It took a few mere seconds for the turian to craft a readable 'you're screwed' expression.

"Omni-gel will fix the structural damage, but your chipset is offline. I can't do much about it down here."

The cracks were the list of her worries, "What _can _you fix with what you've got?"

Garrus paused, appraising the system, "Communications. We'll just have to stick to my scanners."

"What's your highest sensitivity setting?"

"Level four," Garrus replied apologetic.

Shepard grimaced, "We're going to have to tip toe out of here."

Garrus made his repairs in silence and the whole ordeal took less than five minutes. The time lost was valuable, but restored communication with the Normandy was absolutely worth the wait. The real test was whether or not the ship was actually within range of a com buoy, let alone the likelihood that their transmissions would be jammed by ERC. Cracks were smoothed clean and her HUD flashed as the two-way came online, alerting her to newfound channels. Shepard didn't dare test it so soon; even the smallest hail over a closed channel could compromise their position if their communications were, in fact, being tampered with.

She muttered her thanks as she reclaimed her helmet, fears ebbing away just a fraction as she found comfort in the soft buzz of her open channel. They resumed their pace without another word. Shepard began to imagine disastrous outcomes of their evacuation of the tunnel. What would greet them on the other side? A thirty foot drop? A welcoming party of ERC or worse? A geth tea party? The likelihood that luck would smile and deliver them into the loving arms of allies was laughable. Shepard's fortune was fickle and prone to extreme karma swings. As far as she could tell, no sin she'd committed warranted retribution from the omniscient powers. Unless fate counted murder, regardless of the intention, as a crime. If that was the case, then Shepard was in for a karmic tsunami, and she didn't relish the idea of being punished for doing her job.

The path began sloping upwards and Shepard was finding herself exerting much more effort to keep moving. Garrus didn't show any outward signs of struggle, but his pace slowed ahead of her. He'd taken point and Shepard had logically allowed it, despite the nagging instinct that drove her ahead. A functioning radar outmatched her desire to lead. Garrus wasn't a big proponent of needless chatter and his comments were usually clipped and helpful. She'd known talkative servicemen who couldn't button their lips no matter the assignment; routine patrol or rescue operation, they all had something to say about everything. These ones usually didn't last long as other officers discovered their shortcomings. Shepard hadn't known _many_ of them, but their presence still irked her.

Another matter perturbed her and she pressed her palm to the wall for balance as a slip of ice gave way beneath her feet. They'd ascended a great deal and she could feel the air growing warmer. There had to be some source of an exhaust nearby; a sign of higher technology and bustling life. This was not necessarily a blessing given their hostile location. Shepard couldn't risk contacting the Normandy, nor did she dare try to position Wrex. It wasn't so much a matter of his reconnaissance, but just the simple relief that would flow from the knowledge that he was still alive.

"All right, Shepard?" Garrus inquired behind her. The scrape of his talons against the ice called her back to the present.

She nodded.

"Anything on radar?"

He shook his head, puffs of breath freezing in the air, "Negative. All quiet."

Shepard bit her lip, taking no comfort from what should have been good news. All was quiet… far too quiet. It may have been that they simply lacked instruments capable of reading the right frequencies, or the ERC had enacted intense cloaking. It seemed to be overkill considering they were already well concealed beneath layer after layer of glacier, set in a planet they already had practically complete control over… all suits aside.

"Maybe… Keep your eyes open and expect the worst."

Finally the unmistakable slate of a metal blast door came into view. Her heart leapt, but the joy was temporary. She had no idea where they'd surfaced or what exactly this steel slab was protecting. Garrus began his advance but she lifted a closed fist, freezing him. She took a few cautious steps forward, lifting the shotgun from her hip as she silently approached the door. Garrus obediently kept to her right flank as his rifle hummed to life. She cast him an expectant look, which he met and read with expert intuition, nodding 'no' as his sensors remained silent. Next came the task of breaching the doorway and surviving whatever lay ahead. There were no alternate routes, no detours through less conspicuous tunnels. This was the last stop. Garrus assured her that nothing lay behind the walls, but a level four upgrade package was very little consolation considering just how outnumbered and ill equipped they were in that frigid shaft.

One more tentative step forward activated the motion sensors and the great steel slabs groaned apart. They froze in tandem as they path unexpectedly opened before them. Shepard sighted her shotgun, though there was no quarry to target just yet. Still, instinct urged her to take up arms and prepare to fire, the slickness of her gloves squeaking softly as she squeezed. Garrus mirrored her movements without prompt, preparing himself for whatever lay ahead. But when the mist cleared and the mechanical efforts of the automatic door ceased, the silence revealed her dread.

Her aim wavered as eyes widened, unwilling to accept the scene in front of them. By the grace of her own obduracy, her mouth remained close and the surprise wailed within. At least twenty agents stood by rank before her, creating an impenetrable barrier or armored thugs. A myriad of species stood before them, expressions ranging from blank to sickly pleased. The forerunners wielded flashing weapons, armed and prepared to discharge as many rounds as needed to fell the intruders. Shepard's guiding voice screamed at her to disarm, to dissuade the mob before them from opening fire. Reluctantly, she let the shotgun fall to her side. She couldn't bring herself to look at Garrus; too many failures in a row made it difficult to meet his eyes. Once again, she'd trampled his trust underfoot and led them into a firing squad.

"Stand down, Garrus…" She muttered. Shepard could feel his hesitance, a brief glance, and then the rifle quieted as he relinquished himself to her authority. She could read nothing from him. No frustration, no anger, no disappointment. Just utter blankness. Perhaps it was a similar breed to the defeat that choked her then.

A burly human approached, the heavy grey armor encircling his neck giving him the figure of a massive bulldog. He possessed no weapon, but was followed out by two armed turians as he broke formation.

"Commander Ren Shepard, Garrus Vakarian: you are under arrest for conspiracy, assault of Elanus Risk Control agents, and coercion," the man rumbled, an executioner's voice.

Shepard's gaze hardened, voice monotone, "I'm not liable under your jurisdiction."

He sneered as his agents advanced. Garrus balked like an unsettled horse, but one of the turians landed a solid blow to his back, stifling him. Shepard was suddenly several feet closer with no memory of how she got there, teeth bared in a snarl as a chorus of pistols simultaneously took aim at her. Garrus groaned, but remained uptight, successfully subdued. Shepard let her hands fall back to her sides as they were surrounded.

"You are outside Citadel space and therefore responsible for your actions, Spectre or no," the man sneered.

Shepard's face softened as she bade defeat away.

"I'll speak to your supervisor about that," she growled.

"That's the idea," the man rumbled as the turian agents shoved them forward. The crowd began to disperse, parting for their exit as they were ushered deeper into the garage. All around them, crates were loaded into inconspicuous shuttle craft, armed guards overseeing the transport. It was then that she knew exactly why such a bitter environment might appeal to a double-dealing agency. The secrecy and unmonitored shipping proved ideal for the trafficking occurring under their noses. It was the complete lack of krogan participants that gave them away.

And here they stood, exercising false authority over her in a mockery of justice. It would be a fool's trial, a game played for the sick fun of it. The lot of them trooped through the din of dishonest work. Shepard dared a glance at Garrus, who appeared quite disgruntled after the blow. Much to her surprise, he met her eyes as they marched in silence, seeking thoughts within the piercing blue. But he was guarded, then, gears turning behind the curtain.

Fear was catching up to her as the trekked up a set of narrow stairs. They were deep within enemy territory and their captors answered to a warped authority. These were terrorists and the law protecting them in that den of treachery was as enduring as a shield of glass.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_The weight of Aguila's death hit Toombs' men hard once the dust settled and the damage splayed out before them. Shepard's crew, on the other hand, remained impressively stoic. Her team knew the risks of their occupation and had come to terms with the likelihood of sacrifice before graduation. These boys here never expected more than a few dirt devils during their time out here. Death was such a distant, foreign idea. But Aguila's body lay before them, a cruel reminder that there was no such thing as a safe assignment. _

_The bright side to this debacle was the reunion with both Golderg and Brahms' humvees. Their passengers had all faired immensely better and the worst injuries of note were superficial scrapes. They stood atop a dune, consulting their maps while the rest of the crew surveyed the horizon. Goldberg and Brahms stood side to side, helmets off and heads shaking._

"_We're still about twenty clicks from the drop zone... We could-"_

_Goldberg interjected, "Toombs' men are spooked. L.C. says to scrub the pickup."_

_Heresy eased few fears so Shepard interrupted, leaving the rest of her team to regroup and prepare Aquila for transport. _

"_Our humvee's shot and I don't trust these boys to get anything done today," Shepard spoke quietly, eyes wandering to the cluster of soldiers pulling the zipper up on Aguila's body bag. Ghatori was attempting to maintain a conversation with Lao, but to little avail. The man was still wide-eyed and effectively stunned by the realization that Akuze had finally claimed one of his own._

_Geo-Tech hadn't invested enough in their well-being for Shepard to reconsider her decision to abort. Frustration nagged at her; not because of what they'd abandoned, but because she was realizing just how green these soldiers were. The Lima had produced a fine squad of apt marines and Shepard couldn't imagine dealing with anyone less capable than the emissaries of their old vessel._

"_Shepard!" Colonel Toombs called from behind. She pivoted as best she could have given the resistance of the sand beneath her boots. He sidled up to her, perspiration clear through the gap between his visor and chin guard._

"_It's going to be a tight squeeze, Shepard," Toombs muttered, his disappointment resounding clear despite his efforts to contain his malcontent with their mission status. Even Toombs couldn't deny the blow Aguila's death had dealt and his own hands betrayed him, fidgety._

_She made no immediate reply, but performed a quick head count of the troops awaiting transport._

"_Divide them up. Evenly. I want Goldberg at the wheel. You'll ride shotgun with me."_

_Toombs didn't complain about his demotion from driver to passenger. She could see the cracks of his visage widen, revealing the fatigue building within. _

_With a nod of assent, Toombs turned and issued the orders, to which the men and women eagerly obeyed. Shepard turned for Goldberg's attention when a chorus of ear-piercing shrieks resounded behind her. Her pulse quickened as she stumbled to face the cacophony and found a handful of her marines doubling over, tearing their helmets off. O'Callahan stumbled into view, his rifle in hand without prompt. He had managed to suppress the overwhelming signal and found his way to her, wide eyed and urgent._

"_That's it! That's the jamming!" he screamed._

_Ghatori called from just down the dune, squinting against the incessant screeching, "I've got major seismic activity here!" _

_Shepard took his word for it as the firmament rumbled beneath the sea of sand. _

"_Get to your humvess! Go, go, go!" Shepard screamed as she began the agonizingly slow run through the sand._

_She kept the humvee in her sights, but it rocked and pitched about as the world turned against them. The flock of them fled for the safety of armored transport, but their feet were sinking. The foundation failed them as they ran for their lives. _

_Shepard made frequent efforts to chase the panic of death from her mind, to accept only the mission and the circumstances surrounding it, regardless of the known odds of survival. Greet every challenge with a plan, conquer every foe with counter efforts. Never lie down and never, ever, succumb to the paralysis of fear. But as the dunes fissured beneath them, the ignorance faded and she could no longer stomach the ignorance that came with the idea of survival, no matter the cost. _

_There was an undeniable chance that they would all perish without ever igniting the engines._

_-------------------------------------------------_

They were deposited unceremoniously in a narrow holding cell, the walls of which were hastily carved out of glacial rock. The containment screen slid shut as their turian escorts disarmed them and said their goodbyes with two swift blows from the butts of their weapons, leaving Shepard and Garrus all the more agitated. As soon as they were left to their own devices, Shepard delivered a swift, ineffective jab to the tempered glass. The sound reverberated mockingly back at her as the screen refused to give. Shamed and frustrated, she slumped back and tore her helmet off. One hand slipped through jet hair while the other let the armor hang limply at her side.

She expected Garrus to chastise her, to let loose the dry wit and snide critique. He said nothing until she was still, his eyes cautiously settling on her.

"I think we may have confirmed a few rumors…" Garrus said quietly, little more than a vibration through the stagnant cell air.

Shepard snorted; a heavy-hearted sound, "It's the Second Strike all right… discovery of the fucking century."

_And here we are, gift-wrapped and ready to die._

"So what do we do? Prepare for the worst?" Garrus gestured towards the visible corridor, two armored grunts standing guard.

"Or something like it. They may kill us, but that would raise a few suspicions and put their delicate operation in jeopardy. We went after _them_… We're probably more of an unpleasant surprise…" Shepard mused aloud, playing the various scenarios in her mind while she tried to imagine the motivation for their incarceration.

Shepard's death would result in a terrible backlash from the Alliance. The Council, not so much. Spectres disappeared quietly, regardless of the failure. There would be no retaliation or vengeance enacted in her honor. It would take some time for C-Sec to realize that one of their top agents had been claimed by a backwater terrorist organization long thought dissolved. Since he was already on indefinitely leave with them, there was no guarantee that anything would be done. Whoever was in charge of this operation would most likely avoid a messy end, unless there was some fool-proof method to completely hide their deaths. It would be a bold, idiotic move, but a headstrong, infuriated person might just possess the balls to do it.

That would spell out certain doom.

Footfalls drew her attention to the door as a salarian approached the cell, followed by a small armed entourage. The guards entered first in a touching display of subversion. Garrus and Shepard backed away slowly, keen on avoiding any further brutality while they remained unarmed.

"You two lucked out. The chief has requested your presence and you would do well to come quietly."

"Who might that be," Garrus demanded.

The Salarian tilted its narrow head, wide black eyes disappearing momentarily behind thin eyelids. "No one of importance to you, agent Vakarian. This invitation was extended to Shepard."

"Vakarian goes too, or I don't budge," Shepard replied flatly.

The air exploded around her as an open fist collided with her jaw. She stumbled backwards, reeling from the strike. Garrus had put himself between the salarian and his commander, but the second assault did not come.

The guard stepped back in line. The salarian appeared completely unmoved.

"The terms are non-negotiable. We will escort you to the chief's office without incident, or we will express our discontent to your turian friend."

Shepard caught Garrus' eyes and attempted to plead as much as she could with that one look, begging for his compliance. "Garrus…" she practically whispered, her demands unspoken. but fully felt.

The request wasn't settling. His mandibles twitched noticeably while her tried to swallow the dilemma. It was a simple order and she was almost touched by his resistance to the idea. As much as she wanted to latch onto his arm and march into the unknown, this was another opportunity to endanger them. Without her, he might actually survive.

Garrus nodded and fell back, sullen. Shepard stepped up with a quiet inhalation, struggling to keep her hands at her sides while each guard approached and took hold of her arms, leading her out the door without giving her time to glance back at her squad mate. Someone roughly slid a blindfold over her eyes and she bit her lip. She didn't know if she would have even been able to handle watching him drift from her sights. That was one blow she would not recover from.

"_Sorenson! Move it!" She shoved the soldier from behind, propelling the marine towards the humvee. _

_Goldberg hit the hood of the transport at the same time as Shepard, heaving and spitting sand before the guard screen descended to cover her face. Her voice exploded in Shepard's ear, "I only count five of us here!"_

"_What?" Shepard gaped, spinning around to see nothing but exploding fissures, geysers of sand and flailing limbs. _

_-------------------------------------------------_

Shepard tried to focus on mapping her steps as they walked, grudgingly reliant on their guidance as their bizarre procession continued. Minutes passed and what began as a tangible path became a dizzying maze. Turns and stops, circles and ascensions. Stairs appeared and then disappeared just as soon beneath her feet. All part of the grand death trap.

She could hear the mechanical clanking of lifts and carriers, heavy loads prepared for transport to their black market clients. A nuisance she once thought eliminated, risen from the grave and haunting her, an everlasting reminder of the mission failed.

_-------------------------------------------------_

"_Bannon! Brahams!" No reply. Only the roar of raging sand. Screams erupting as the second humvee rolled into view, pitching from its stationary place. It rolled away, bounding as if it weighed nothing. _

_A body flew past. Shepard's throat tightened as she failed to discern whether the soldier was living or dead, and she never saw it hit the ground. It simply blew out of sight._

_The winds increased tenfold and visibility worsened immensely. She could barely make out the crackling in her two-way. No voices heralded hope. No one came to her call._

_She groped around the standing rover, scrambling to the driver side door. Shepard threw it open, panting heavily as she peered inside for a head count. There were none. No one had been able to take safety within the humvee and there were no clues to point her towards where they had actually gone. _

_There was nothing but the buffeting storm and relentless howl of the wind as they were swept up with the dune._

_-------------------------------------------------_

A gruff hand pushed her through the threshold and forced her into the chair, but the blindfold remained. Shepard listened as three pairs of feet trooped out the door and the silence of her new surroundings engulfed her. The hairs at the back of her neck prickled as some internal alarm blared.

All other circumstances aside, something was terribly wrong. A piece of another reality had slipped in and become part of the hideous amalgamation. One horror fused with another as her instinctual urge to run overcame her. Robbed of both her sight and freedom, there would be no release from panic's hold. Only the unshakable terror that held her heart.

"I did the math, you know. The odds of us meeting like this were so astronomical that I feel like we can classify this moment as an achievement," the tormentor's voice raced across her skin, summoning long-dormant memories and resurrecting emotions so ancient that her brain couldn't decode them.

The voice sighed, "Though the terms of our encounter are certainly less than favorable. But, nevertheless…"

_-------------------------------------------------_

_Marines were reduced to silhouettes within the raging sandstorm. As soon as Shepard locked one in her sights and pressed on to pursue them, their image dissolved into the chaos. Everywhere she turned, illusions. Soldiers disappeared before her very eyes, though screams and cries for help rang true in her radio. _

_What hope could be found out here? Life threatened to cease here, to bury beneath sediment over time only to be found months later, when there was substantial desire to find them._

_The sand dropped away as a tremor forced another fissure open. A plume of sand shot upward and she balked, retreating a few paces backward as she beheld the unnatural sight. But the sand did not abate and a terrible cry accompanied this explosion of fragmented rock. Pupils shrunk to pinpricks as flesh was revealed. Not the flesh of a human, or any animal she recognized. Foul, armored meat stretching up in a column, topped with a gaping hole surrounded by vacillating appendages. It was thicker than any tree she'd encountered. Louder than any living creature she could name. It sounded as though it had just escaped the deepest pits of hell, screaming from the madness induced from eons of suffering._

_It stopped ascending and arched downwards, tilting its head to the ground. Rings of teeth, tentacles… All the assorted parts deemed disgusting by the majority of the human race. It was a terrible hybrid of so many fears. _

_And two of her own men dangled from its mouth, devoid of legs. The thresher maw had emerged._

_-------------------------------------------------_

The hand drew her blindfold away and she narrowed her eyes against the light, urging herself to focus quickly at the man kneeling before her, eye level and dangerously close.

Her heart skipped a whole beat and Shepard wanted so very badly for it to cease its rhythm as the realization bore into her. Dread swallowed the words in her throat and blood boiled. She choked on betrayal and sat frozen as she tried to trick herself. Shepard's eyes were vengeful organs, creating scenes of unimaginable atrocities. There was no other explanation for the scene before her. She closed her eyes, praying to the blackness for his figure to vanish, and opened them… to no avail.

"…It's good to see you again, Shepard."

_Chief _McDowell still crouched in front of her, a false smile plastered to his face.

_-------------------------------------------------_

_If you didn't see that coming, then damn. Sorry? Take from it what you will. Like always, review if you want another chapter. Thank yoooou._

_Rest in peace, David Cooper._


	13. Chapter 13

_**Author's Note: **__I hate Macs. No- I loathe Macs. Unfortunately, my own laptop decided to betray me and is now awaiting a repair order. I have been adrift, floating from computer to computer with the hopes that I might find a temporary home. This is the best I can do._

_I heard these were supposed to be excellent creative outlets, but now… as I sit down to write, I am so overcome with such terrible writers' block that I feel I need to physically hurt something._

_This has been, by far, the most difficult chapter to write. There be road bumps ahead._

_So yes... Senior year is coming to a close. We are now two days away from the official U.S. launch of Mass Effect 2._

_Forgive me for all my faults and falters. I bring you a violation of Bioware's trust._

_

* * *

  
_

The mind began as an empty vessel; a blank canvas, meant to be shaped, molded, filled with knowledge and understanding. This was the very foundation of the mental process. Life's beginning determined the frame and function of a human being; from speech to movement, comprehension and problem solving. Even a man's self-worth was determined by the earliest of lessons. Children grew up on a diet of words and wishes as parents fed them praise and reproach alike. This built the ego and the world around it would forever be locked in combat with the innermost sense of who and what we are. Few understood just how tightly man was woven together, with individuals outside our own paradigms tied directly to us. No complete human being could grow in a vacuum and no one could choose the influences responsible for evolving us.

Shepard was no exception, though she yearned for a way to change it. The basis of her being was rent asunder and a crack ran deep where time had paved over. It was not in man's nature to unlearn the learned, but when ghosts of the past became corporeal again, bearing proof of its deception, she had no choice. All she had come to accept as truth swirled around her, solidifying as a ruse and peeling away until the bare truth remained: all she had come to believe was a lie.

He had forced confidence down her throat, clasped a gun in her hand and taught her how to live and stay alive. Now his words hung like shackles from her limbs and she hadn't the strength to break them. What had once been her resolve now cackled back at her, mocking her trust and scolding her for ever believing she was made for more.

McDowell stood upright, rising to tower above her. He stepped back with an abrupt laugh, casting a shadow at her feet.

"Oh Shepard, you should see your face," he chuckled, leaning back against his desk in a mockery of casual conversation.

"I'd rather not," she mumbled, the words spilling forth without her permission.

McDowell arched a brow as some of the cruel humor fluttered, leaving his face momentarily stagnant. It was an appraisal, an assessment of just how much spirit he'd left intact.

Had Shepard not possessed a stronger mask of indifference, he may have seen just how she far she'd fallen. Duty and fear compelled her to keep afloat and protect the shred of confidence still dwindling within. She was running on fumes now; pure instinct driving her to survive and save those her own hubris had cursed. It made her crass. Reckless.

Stupid.

"Well then, we have a dilemma. You've chosen a very inopportune time to drop by. I'm in the middle of some important business and doubt you'd be too interested in assisting me," he stated loftily, taking a seat at his desk while he reached for some unknowable console.

Shepard's eyes followed him, certain that if she looked anywhere else, she would lose him. Little about his physicality had changed. Those were still the same soft eyes, only now they glittered with unspoken plots. Grey had snuck into his hairline and there was a new smugness about him that she despised. A floodgate had opened, letting some terrible demon of greed and deceit possess him. This was the same smile that had encouraged her on Cafrim. Once, it conveyed comfort. Now, it turned the blood to ice in her veins.

"Sorry, but I've got no business 'roiding up salarians. Not even for shits and giggles," she drawled, unsure of how these words found purchase or where the gall to say them came from. She was dancing with the devil and inching closer to death with every sweeping step.

"Now that, Shepard, would be a fool's errand," he smiled brightly. It made her ill.

"Save the cryptic bullshit for someone you _don't_ intend to kill, McDowell. Level with me. You owe that much," Shepard groaned.

He was up before she could blink, hands at her collar as he hoisted her off the chair and spun her round into his desk. Shepard had no free hands to help brace herself. She connected with the lip of his desk with a loud crack and collapsed the rest of the way to the floor. Something ignited within her and she was scrambling to get upright, kicking out against him as he stormed towards her, pulling her up by the neck. She rewarded him with a head butt and he reeled back. Though a helmet might have made the attack all the more effective, it bought her enough time to get her on her feet, only to meet a flying fist.

The pain blossomed as a fresh stream of blood trickled down her lip. McDowell got hold of her once more and snarled, a mean lump rising above his right eye.

"I owe you _nothing_, Shepard! But you… I should take _everything _from you! I had you gift wrapped for Markham. I made you someone worth keeping alive and this is how you repay me? You turn around and bite me in the ass when I am _this _close?!," he hissed and struck her again. A brilliant light show flashed before her.

She bared her teeth, screaming in his face.

"For what?! Why did you fucking bother? What was the brilliant plan, huh!? Where you _ever _Alliance? What _was_ all that to you?!"

He threw her down and collapsed onto Shepard's chair, gingerly touching his fresh bruise.

"A means to an end," he sighed. The tide of rage was ebbing, leaving Shepard stunned and confused on the floor as the taste of copper filled her mouth.

"What better place to traffic illegal drugs than a desolate rock already under Alliance protection? The base was mine once you left, Shepard. No one wanted to go digging for trouble, so trouble just passed them all by. But you… You couldn't let anything lie. You almost ruined me with your self-righteous shit."

Shepard spat a mixture of saliva and blood at the cold steel floor, "How nice of you to move me out of the way. I… I really appreciated it."

"You damn well better have," McDowell growled. "Do you know how much ass I had to kiss to get you on the Lima and out of my sight? You were the one weak link on that God damn rock. I had everyone else in my pocket. Dumb. Complacent. Perfect."

She winced as she struggled to sit up, trying her damndest not to let him see the fruits of his labors.

"Do you know how hard it is to find people who can embrace your ideals with the same passion and commitment as you? Like looking for another earth. We are few and far between."

"The krogan are finished, McDowell. The genophage worked and you're all going to get your way. The survivors aren't a threat anymore so why all this? What kind of vendetta keeps you here? Credits? Is this… oh so profitable?"

"Your intelligence is lacking, Shepard. For that, I'm quite impressed," McDowell leaned forward slowly, elbows braced on his knees as the sick smile spread across his lips.

Shepard's eyes narrowed as she braced her back against his desk, voice wavering.

"Enlighten me..."

He cocked his head and gestured to the window. She craned around, but saw nothing of note. There was a soft beep and the shutters closed, leaving no indication as to whether or not a sun existed outside. Memory alone proved it was once there. Suddenly, the entire room was illuminated by a blue glow. A star map manifested above her, shifting and traveling light years back and forth to dozens of systems, some with unrecognizable notations. A script scrolled before her, but she couldn't make out the text.

"They were steroids at first. Crude, ugly things with predictable results. After your escapade on Cafrim, C-Sec opened more investigations than we could manage and the separatists were silenced. But we covered our tracks. Even after the disaster with Turiov, he wouldn't crack. After his sentencing, he kept his mouth shut. Just another dead end- a true believer. It was never about the krogan, Shepard. We began slow, helped reignite the hatred between the races. It was the first step. But there was a much more ambitious stride."

Shepard struggled to understand, but her mind was reeling. If the krogan weren't the target, then what was the point of empowering a salarian coup?

"Tomorrow at 0700, we will distribute our entire cache of performance enhancers to the participating systems you see here. They will discover before the week is up that these products contain a lethal Paramus virus. Harmless to krogans and turians, but a death sentence to those expecting other drugs. We estimate that roughly thirty-five percent of their population will die within the first three weeks. Then we will reveal the sabotage carried out by the turians. The salarians will accuse them of turning the phage against their own people and we shall see war again. They will destroy themselves, point fingers and incite hatred until every species is absorbed into the turmoil. And we shall disappear once more."

Shepard gaped, overturning the words in her head.

Her voice barely carried, "You're Terra Firma."

"Hardly," McDowell scoffed. "They're earth lovers and bigots without ambition. We are vanguards of the human race."

"You're murderers. What makes you think you can get away with xenocide?" Shepard growled.

"The fact that our biggest obstacle is currently handcuffed and bleeding on the floor of my office," McDowell replied softly.

"So you see, you don't need to die just yet. All I need is for you to stay put until 0700 and my goal is realized. I do, however, have a few asari personnel who are very anxious to carry out your sentence. So I promise you this: you may live until every last one of my cargo ships is under way. After that, I'm afraid I'll have to hand you over. Apparently your feats of strength didn't go over too well with my staff. I'm sure we'll find some use for your turian friend."

Shepard could think of nothing to say that might dissuade him. The evidence had just been presented and the jury spoke volumes. Sure enough, this was renegade justice and there was nothing she could do to overrule it.

"You should have stayed put, Shepard," McDowell's smile faltered. "You could have lived through this had you just been a good soldier and followed orders."

"It won't work, McDowell... They're not all warmongers. They're not like us," she hissed. "They _learned _from their mistakes."

He rose and returned to his desk, commanding the console once more. The doors hissed open and five agents poured in. A fierce-looking pair of asari took hold of Shepard and dragged her to her feet, She trashed a bit before a solid blow to the back of her head chased the fight away. She squared off with McDowell once more, meeting his gaze with a glare that screamed of his betrayal.

He didn't meet her eyes for long. McDowell gave the agents a short nod and the asari to her right jammed a small black charge into her neck. Shepard screamed as her skin seemed to catch on fire, nerves taut in agony. When her mind recovered from the white-hot pain, the armored portions of her hardsuit were gone and the asari were working on tearing the insulation away.

Shepard hissed at McDowell, "I'll kill you. I swear, I'm going to watch you _die_."

"I doubt that. We've been preoccupied with our outgoing shipments and thus able to requisition the latest Guardian models. Delaria has been eyeing yours for quite some time I don't have the heart to deny her," he shrugged, as though Shepard was supposed to strip down of her own free will and hand over the armor with a stupid smile.

The asari who she assumed to be Delaria smirked as she stood before Shepard and forced her out of the insulating layer. Shepard rocked about as the blue woman jerked her around, seizing the much-coveted hard suit. Shepard maintained eye contact the whole time as the woman tore her dignity away, leaving the Spectre to stand before a hateful crowd in little more than under armor.

Shepard had clearly lost more than she could afford. She was completely vulnerable to the elements, possessed none of her weapons and had no backup squad to call on. The Normandy had no way of locating her unless they followed her exact footsteps into this frozen pit. Years of training had been cast off as lies as she watched a mentor die at her feet, only to have a doppelganger rise from the ashes and strip away her confidence.

But something survived deep beneath the scar tissue and open wounds. Something bitter and hard forced her mouth open as the asari robbed her.

"It's going to make your ass look _huge_."

Pearly white teeth snarled as a black-gloved fist struck her gut, Shepard's legs gave out, but the arms stayed on her like vices. Many blows followed and a good deal of time passed before Shepard no longer noticed them.

* * *

_Shepard was running through sand, moving at a snail's pace through the chaos of the storm. She had been sprinting with one nameless soldier at her side. The past three times she checked, he'd been there. She'd screamed at him to keep up again and again, but the fourth glance was the last. The Maw shot up from beneath the sea of sand, covering the man in a foul green acid that sent him flailing, thrashing until he fell to the ground and disappeared behind the veil of brown. Eventually, even the screams died away the storm became the only voice besides her own._

_When the Maw breached again, she was ready with her pistol charged. She strafed left and let fly a serious of rapid shots, sights set on the blooming flesh that formed its mouth. The thing writhed and shrieked, struggling to disappear beneath the sand once more. But Shepard had a grenade ready before it could recoil completely. She screamed and stuck the thing, blowing out a massive chunk of vile flesh before the beast collapsed like a felled tree, spilling forth copious amounts of acid. The stuff had already destroyed her helmet and stray spatterings left holes in the protective suit._

_She kept running. Shepard heaved and screamed names, looking for bodies and remembering hands grasped. Encouragements failed. Silence returned. The evidence of her convoy had been completely swallowed up by the deserts of Akuze._

_Shepard couldn't understand why she alone remained to walk the surface, blind to the dunes ahead; seeing only the single hour that her mind could not stop repeating._

_She had no bearings. Her navigational unit could still function thanks to a backup battery, but her eyes couldn't focus on the coordinates. Though her hands moved and made contact with her own sun-beaten face, she could feel nothing. A numbness spread throughout her limbs, desensitizing her to even the most jarring contact._

_There was no way to tell how far she had come. The storm covered her tracks completely. As far as she knew, Shepard had only traveled a few feet. The proof of the encounter disappeared under layers of sand._

_The screen of dust fell away and the silence returned. The same memories echoed. The same names repeated themselves in alphabetical order. Every few hours, she doubled over and wretched into the sand until there was nothing left to vomit. Still, she continued to dry heave long after her emergency beacon activated. Finally, her legs failed and her final footstep sent her tumbling down a dune. She lay motionless at the base, waiting._

_The best response time of even the closest frigate was about two hours. She was but one signal. The last pulse left on a dead world._

_

* * *

  
_

Shepard couldn't remember the walk back, but sure enough, she was staring at the closed door of her cell. The turian agent slid a keycard through the side panel and the metal slab slid open. Garrus was sitting on the bench extending from the wall, arms folded across his chest. He practically leapt to his feet and stormed the entryway as an eerily still Shepard hung in their grasp.

"What the hell do-!" Garrus barked, but his demands were forgotten as soon as the asari shoved the limp Spectre inside.

Shepard expected to taste floor, but something got in her way. Armored limbs caught her and pulled her away from the menacing entourage. There was loud exchange of threats followed by the abrupt closing of the cell door. She couldn't hear their footsteps anymore. There was nothing to distract her from the constant aching. Shepard had played the part of punching bag for far too long and felt suffocated by the weight of her own flesh.

It had been nothing short of a nightmare. She remembered spinning into waiting blows. In the beginning, she fought… despite the uselessness of her bound arms. Eventually, the will to struggle died and she couldn't keep standing. As much as she wanted to fall and lay on the floor, they would not allow it. At some point, she lost a piece of time and awoke to another procession of ERC through the freezing hallways.

The cold was absolutely piercing without her Guardian armor and she couldn't seem to stop shaking. Every shiver taunted a wound, perpetuated the searing sensation.

Garrus was moving her again. She felt steel beneath her and talons at her back. She was sitting up, but she could not understand how. No effort of hers made it so.

Finally, the scene became clear and the faint light of Garrus' scanner helped bring her to the present. His eyes would not settle and his mouth was moving rapidly. She could hear once more. A soft, urgent tone brimming with fury.

"-you hear me? Can you speak? Don't- no, don't move. It's alright; you're okay," he muttered. A calm had descended upon her, but the uncertainty in his voice was forcing away the docile state she'd entered.

Despite his commands, she was struggling to stand, eager to issue orders and rise up and lead the way.

" Gotta' get you out of here… You… _Hn_… You have to get to the Normandy… Find Wrex… They-" Shepard blurted, fumbling to connect thoughts in proper order as they rushed her all at once. Too many problems. Too little time to solve them.

"Shepard, stop-" He insisted, hands applying cautious but unwavering force as she swam in and out of lucidity.

"No! No- They're going after the salarians. It's- no, listen… Phage. It's a phage. McDowell's here. He knows who you are. They're going to kill me tomorrow. You gotta' get out. Find, Wrex-"

Shepard lost all sense of clarity as Garrus shifted her. It was all a jumble of limbs until her eyes focused once more and she found herself propped up against the wall. His talons appeared out of nowhere and she flinched. He stood stock-still and she couldn't figure out who pressed the pause button. Perhaps her reaction had stunned him. He may have been afraid of her breaking. She scoffed at the notion. Shepard was a fraction away from shattering.

Garrus's hands slid slowly across her neck, pausing over the welts and bruises he found. Her eyes fluttered shut as the slightest of contact threatened to reopen wounds. She was shivering again didn't know how to stop. His talons continued their cautious exploration as he seemed to catalogue her injuries, making note of every abrasion. Shepard allowed it, despite the instinct that urged her to swat him away and back into a corner. The attention was alien to her but she didn't have the will to stop him. She was compliant now and it didn't seem to bode well with the turian.

He cradled her face gently, urging her to meet his eyes. She found his pale blue gaze and kept it. There was a strange comfort there, the soothing sense of the familiar.

"We're going to live through this, remember? We've got too much left to do to have it all end here on this ice cube," his voice was just above a whisper; a low rumble that chased the cold away.

"There's nothing we can do now. Not until they open that door again," Shepard replied, monotone.

Garrus nodded, "Until then, we're going to have to concentrate on maintaining your core temp. Otherwise, you're going to turn a mean shade of asari blue."

His hands fell away and she nodded. Garrus stood and surveyed the room, bringing his omni-tool to life.

"They disabled just about all of my higher functions. Even took my omni-gel. I managed to establish a workaround for communications, though. It'll take a couple of hours to find a comm buoy behind all the signal jamming, but we should at least be able to make short wave contacts. As long as there's someone out there to call…"

Shepard continued to nod overzealously, unsure as to why she was losing control of basic motor functions. The most likely culprit was the cold.

Garrus turned and snuck an arm behind her waist, "I'm moving you to the floor, alright? I promise it's much more accommodating than that damn bench."

She didn't argue that. He helped her to stand and pulled her arm across his shoulders, opposite it hand guiding her at the waist to the ground. Garrus gradually eased her downwards with him and shifted so her weight rested atop him. Shepard remained pliable during the whole transition, allowing him to play the puppeteer as he finally let her rest against his chest.

Much to her surprise, the armor was warm to the touch. A far cry from the frigid state he'd been in only hours ago.

Despite her exhaustion, she felt she had to speak. Excuses and explanations swarmed, urging her to talk through the situation. He had to be kept up to speed.

"They're shipping everything out tomorrow. It's a virus. We have to stop it," Shepard urged quietly. The quivering had ceased thanks to the modest warmth of Garrus' hardsuit.

He obliged her, draping an arm across her back while he adjusted his legs.

"We'll find a way," he muttered, his words disappearing into the top of her head.

Shepard wanted to reaffirm it, to assure him that she had a plan and that he could trust her. Yet she was out of countermeasures. There were no more strategies to employ here. No air ducts wide enough to sneak through, no key cards to steal or loyalties to buy.

She would have to resort to her least favorite option.

Luck.

Shepard eventually surrendered to sleep, unable to resist her body's need to heal. The morning would come soon enough and she wasn't at all prepared to face it. Thoughts of failure foiled her peace and brought back the fresh memories of her capture. There would be no escape from the events of the day. They were no closer to success. No closer to their lost squad mate. She dreamed of Wrex's voice, asking her over and over again for coordinates. Shepard never replied.

* * *

_The sky above her burst into flames. From it fell a mass of metal; an iron war bird come to claim its prey. She faltered, but kept moving, determined to face her fate with open eyes and closed fists. _

_It landed several yards ahead; indistinguishable from a mirage. She kept moving, stumbling, shifting through the sands until the wavering image solidified, bearing the markings of a familiar name. _

_It was not the means to her end. _

_The bay door opened and a well-armed rescue squad spilled out. They were not of the local fleet. These were infantry. Men trained to fight and kill; not to mill about on lonely planets looking for beeping beacons._

_These were the men and women of the Lima. _

_A team of four covered the distance quickly. Shepard blinked and suddenly, they were there. The sergeant removed his helmet._

"_L.C. Shepard! We're here to escort you and your team back to the Lima… Toombs…?"_

_Shepard kept walking and they flanked her. She met no one's eyes. She simply kept her gaze locked on the drop ship ahead and moved forward._

"_Ma'am, please! Where's your unit? Were are the other survivors?"_

_It was like wading through a dream. The day she'd prayed for had come, the day of her deliverance. This was her overdue ascension. But in that dream, there had been smiling faces. Congratulatory handshakes and exchanges of greetings. Now, there were the slow turns of heads; suspicious stares and men on the verge of mourning. This was no welcoming party._

_She knew the looks in their eyes. They had never been their commander. They did not know her lead outside of reports and reputation. They doubted. They assumed._

_Her glorious return in tatters. _

_She couldn't speak. It may have been the sand that had parched her throat. More likely, the complete unwillingness to break the silence she held onto. _

_Shepard came to the bay doors and the rest of the squad parted, allowing her a clear path to the gangway._

_A man in captain's garb descended, hand braced against the overhead as he hurried into the blazing sun. He stopped, heavy brown eyes affixed to Shepard's. The gaze accused her of nothing, nor did it regard her with shame. It was an eager, sorrowful stare that shook her very foundation. _

_Shepard stood before him and paused, as if stuck in slow motion. She assumed the position of attention and offered a slow, steady salute. _

"_Captain Markham," she croaked._

"_At ease, Shepard," he nodded, shifting his weight. For the first time in Shepard's life, Markham didn't seem to know what to do. _

"_Re..requesting permission to come aboard," she let her salute fall._

_Markham pursed his lips and nodded, laying a hand on her shoulder._

"_Granted."_

_

* * *

  
_

Shepard awoke to gunshots. Two rounds in quick succession. She looked up and found Garrus already alert and preparing to move her. A taloned hand was splayed at her back, easily noticeable through the flimsy layer of her under armor. The clamor outside continued and they were on their feet moments later. He guided her behind him, stepping forward as a living shield. She detested the arrangement, completely unaccustomed to taking the flank. Any other formation would have been disastrous since she sported absolutely no form of protective gear.

She'd be nothing more than bloodspray. A lot of good _that_ would do.

"How's your jab?" Shepard muttered.

"Pretty effective," Garrus answered quickly, head still facing forward.

"When that door opens, get in the guard's face and I'll disarm him. We should have a few seconds to get set before they recover," Shepard spoke rapidly. It was a hasty plan, but it would serve them better than standing stock still in a cell, waiting to be fired upon like good little prisoners.

She heard him attempt a protest, but the reality of the situation couldn't be denied. There were no other options.

The door slid open and a bare-faced turian stood before them, mandibles twitching. It wheezed then froze before buckling and hitting the floor.

Wrex stepped over the body and plucked the keycard from the dead alien's talons. He shouldered the Rosenkov shotgun and growled.

"You two about ready to check out? Or should I come back later?"

Shepard didn't know whether to vomit or cry. Neither happened, much to her relief. Wrex tossed her a pistol and directed Garrus to the assault rifle still held by the dying asari. He tentatively pulled it from her still-flexing fingers and ushered Shepard into the hallway.

"We're leaving. And I have no intention of ever coming back," Shepard promised. She was fighting a bone chill and still aching from the battering she'd received hours earlier, but urgency forced her to forget, to place it somewhere else to be dealt with later. Long after they were all safe.

"There's an escape route through one of the utility tunnels in the front of the cargo bay. Don't know if we'll make it that far unless you put some _clothes _on, Shepard," Wrex waved them on, but Shepard held up her hand and knelt at the dead asari.

_Delaria…. We meet again_

"We have one more objective here…" Shepard gasped as she finally felt the full force of the freezing air. She stripped the asari with all the urgency of a lonely sailor on shore leave.

"Blow this place to hell?" Wrex supplied as he revealed the cache of charges at his hip.

Shepard cast him a humorless smirk, reopening her split lip with the effort. A rivulet of blood marred her chin.

"Affirmative. Wrex, Garrus, you rig the shipping crates and shuttles. I'll set the charges in the control center."

Garrus shot Shepard a disapproving look, "We're may be better off sticking together."

Wrex shrugged, " Hate to say it, but I've gotta' agree, Shepard. You look like you got chewed up and spit out by a pack of varren."

Yes, she felt like her body was about cave in. Every muscle ached in protest each time she moved. Shepard could see clear as day that Garrus was itching to throw her over his shoulder and carry her out. But there was too much too be done. A debt she had to repay in full.

"We'll lose too much time if we don't split up. Divide and conquer: get it done and get the fuck out. This is not negotiable," Shepard commanded.

Garrus gave a look that made her hesitate, stunning her with the perception she found within his stare. She was scrambling back into her hardsuit, eager to return to the missed comfort of automatic temperature control. But Garrus seemed to just _know. _It was more than a quick demo job.

She had to face McDowell. Shepard could only see one outcome and it had to be actualized. If he didn't die by her hands, than no rest would be had. Garrus' disapproval was obvious, but he had never been a proponent of suicide missions to begin with.

Shepard could not admit that it was such a thing, but logic dictated otherwise. Was pride the force that compelled her, despite broken bones and a battered spirit?

Whatever fueled the fire, it was strong enough to numb pain and put the shattered woman back together just long enough for Shepard to finish what she'd started.

"Wrex, I'm not going to ask how, but I assume you know your way around. Make it quick and kill anyone who's not waving around a white flag. Hail me on the short wave when you're at the rendezvous," Shepard ordered without faltering.

"Roger. We'll get'er done," Wrex divvied up the charges and motioned for Garrus to follow as Shepard reinitialized her Guardian model.

"Shepard," Garrus rumbled, letting Wrex gain a noticeable lead as Shepard turned to face him.

Something was changing, shifting beneath him. More and more, his words compelled her to obey. The alien force behind his stare was more than a curiosity now. There was a current, but she could not comprehend it. It was a leash that bound her and every minute tug on the slack had her attention. It was as though the turian had discovered a means to sway her. A sensation of possession that urged her to run to his side.

What _was _this compulsion?

"Revenge brings no solace," his words hung in the air.

Shepard gave him a subtle nod before he eventually tore himself from her presence and hustled after Wrex.

There was no promise in the gesture. Dr. Saleon had given him no closure, but Garrus had never been a soldier. He couldn't know that Shepard could not kill him out of pure selfish rage, but of an inexplicable sense of duty to all those she had served with. This was a mistake that had to be corrected or more would suffer.

This was her penance.

She set the pistol on the hinges at the small of her back and hurried off in the opposite direction.

"_I hope you're wrong."_

_

* * *

  
_

Done! Chapter 14 should come up pretty soon. I had meant this to be longer, but it was getting to be a bit too much. Next one will pick up where it left off. Umm. Review?


	14. Chapter 14

_**Author's Note: **__** I know this chapter was replaced by the content of 15. I have no idea what happened. It was probably my fault. Anywho, sorry about that. Epicfail.**_

_I absolutely loved Mass Effect 2. Perhaps even more than the first._

_Be warned… I don't usually write romance… but there be some sexyness ahead. Sort of. Let me know if this needs an "M" rating._

_I also have a nifty tip to increase enjoyment. Read this story with Assembled 32's "Horizon" playing the background and follow it up with "Unputdownable" by De/Vision. Over the past two years, these songs have helped me shape this story. The damage they've done is irrevocable._

_We're nearing the end. Not of all things, but the cessation of the familiar. I have another project lined up. An original ME adventure._

_Bioware, reap what you have sown._

_

* * *

_

Every action had an equal and opposite reaction, no matter how just one might see their course. Shepard knew this. She no longer fired indiscriminately, but weighed the warring intentions. But today… This was logical. This was moral. This was not easy. McDowell had a dream, a sordid dream, but one he believed was right. A man solidified by his convictions was an impossible obstacle to move. These were the ones that forced her hand, leading her down the path of destruction. Now, as she placed the final charge just outside central control, she was convincing herself of the man's folly. This was one of the rare moments that marked a life. This was an encounter with true evil. All smiles forgotten, all embraces cast off as mistakes. Nothing within him was sincere. He would see civilizations burned to the ground. He would leave their lives in ruin and sleep well in his perversely perfect world.

She drew the line, separated dark from light and pushed forward against each of her body's aching protests. Her armor was an effective splint, but the surface damage was not easily ignored. McDowell's death would be the balm she needed. The guilt would subside and the searing sting of treachery would fade. Peace would find a home in her heart again.

Shepard was one bullet away from redemption.

She found purchase just below the ramp leading up to McDowell's office. She'd tucked herself into the shadow cast by the overhang and watched as the guards rushed off at his command, words drowned out by the blaring general alarm. News of their escape inevitably reached his ears, but she took no precaution. Her pistol was heavy in her hands as she stepped lightly up the gangway. Protocol evaporated and deeply instilled lessons seemed forgotten as she burst through the threshold, sidearm trained on McDowell.

He stood tall and dour in the center of the room. The slotted light of the shutters cast a broken shadow over his face. He fired. The iridescent blue of her shields flared up, swallowing the bullet and spitting it onto the floor in a plume of smoke. Another shot, another failed attempt to pierce the ceramic plating.

"_No_!" McDowell roared.

The firefight erupted. He demanded backup, but none came. The two of them destroyed the room, knocking over shelves and dodging behind desks as they both struggled to find a true shot in close quarters. He was fast, but so was Shepard. Her aim was true, but he was always a hair's breadth away. They were matched in speed and reflex, meeting each step with the precision saved for partners in a dance. Shepard seethed, grinding her teeth as frustration bubbled up within her. How dare he mock her prowess. How _dare_ he thrive in her rhythm.

The devil's fire coursed through her and the gray became red as she vaulted over the collapsed bookshelf, charging. A primal cry shook her as she dodged another slug as one foot pushed her up off the ground and the other forced her away from the wall. She was above him, staring down into wide, bloodshot eyes. Her finger slid from the trigger as she spun the gun in her hand, handle down. Time slowed as she hovered in the air. Her pulse was heavy and thick. She could feel it in the back of her throat, a suffocating beat. Every muscle ached as air filled her lungs. The flavor of blood lingered in her mouth as moments of the past burst to life before her eyes. Lips moved, but words remained unspoken.

Men and women stood at attention, bright and beaming. The dust of long-dead worlds embedded in uniforms, stuck under fingernails. The smell of exhaust, the slow dawning of red dwarves, the cold touch of metal to bare, damaged skin. Lights of ships flickering and fading away in a sea of stars. Sightless gazes and cold sweats. The vacuum of space pulled them in. They froze in the void, leaving her nothing to hold. The past, gone in an instant. Forsaken for a frame in time.

The space around her ruptured as gravity pulled her down, exploding in a cloud of fury as she struck his face with the butt of her gun. A sickening crack signaled success as he toppled to the floor, groaning. He struggled to rise, legs flailing as Shepard loomed above him, pistol trained on the crease between his eyes.

McDowell cough, teeth stained with blood. He gasped and let his head connect with the floor, half-lidded eyes staring up at Shepard.

"Well… Here we are."

She didn't answer.

"Make your choice, Shepard."

She cocked her weapon. His nostrils flared.

"W-wait, I-"

Shepard fired. She blinked as blood sprayed back at her, spattering across her face. His lips parted and one last breath rattled away. Red bloomed behind him and she stepped back, holstering her weapon. Her hands itched. Shepard wanted to tear her gloves off and scrape at her palms until it stopped. The pistol only made it worse. She had to put it away and keep it away.

There was the sound of heavy breathing. Shepard's. It was difficult to speak.

But the dead could not hear her stutter. She wiped her forward on the back of her gauntlet. There was blood on that too. It smeared across her face. She could feel it beginning to cool and cake.

"I'm… better. F-faster. I'm not a fuck up anymore a-and it's- I don't owe you shit."

Few people in this galaxy knew why Shepard never went home on shore leave. Even fewer had heard the explanation from her lips. She could count them on one hand. Time had done its best to repair the damage. She coped. She left pieces of the truth with those who needed, or earned it. It was a right Shepard had never revoked before today.

Her eyes burned as she stared at McDowell's body, unmoved by the wailing alarm.

"I'm better… Be-because I _kill_… people like you."

McDowell had no rebuttal for her. He absorbed her words and she accepted his defeat. The final words were spoken and made true.

"Shepard, the charges are set. We're ready to blow this place. Where the _hell_ are you?"

Wrex rumbled through her communicator. She opened the channel, but could no longer speak. She turned and left the office, suddenly eager to be away from his tomb. She weaved through overturned crates and the remnants of a struggle. The boys had made quick work of the place. All they needed were the right tools. A few shotguns rounds and a sniper scope.

"Shepard, you got a pulse or what?"

"On my way. Charges are set," she muttered.

They were waiting for her when she finally reached the cargo bay, fending off the remaining resistance that streamed in. Shots were flying every which way and she could hear the chaos erupting behind her. Reinforcements had arrived. They barricaded themselves behind a heavy lifter and their position was already compromised. The imminent danger drew her from muddled thoughts and planted her in the moment.

"Keep your cover. I'm blowing the charges," Shepard warned.

She could see Garrus falter, pulling the barrel of his rifle away as he turned into his communicator, spying her on the observation deck.

"You're too close to the blast zone! Get down here!"

The heat was surprisingly oppressive. The initial detonation was more shock and awe, but when the force of it hit her, she was stunned. Luckily, not quite as badly as the ERC agents unable to take cover. Metal walkways screamed as they were torn apart. Crates flew by her head as the gangway turned over, knocking her down. She reached out for the exposed support beam, dangling just long enough for her to prepare for the rest of the fall. The contact knocked the air from her lungs, but she didn't skip a beat. Clouds of smoke billowed above them as the remaining agents fled. Fire alarms blared and the structure around them quickly dissolved into a mess of rent steel and exposed ice.

Aside from the smoke damage, Shepard survived whole. She jogged through the wreckage and waved the rest of her squad on. The cargo bay had been lost to the chaos and the sound of gunfire was replaced by the din of a collapsing cave. She'd forgone pleasantries, hurrying them forward. The tearful reunion would have to wait.

"Bay doors! Move!"

It was a rush of wind and smoke, screams and jumbled questions. The ERC agents were scattered across the cargo bay, most retreating for unseen escape routes. She leapt over a broken canister, catching the glimmer of shattered glass and mess of colored serums freezing on the floor. A turian leapt above them, dodging a collapsing iron beam and gunning down a fellow asari agent as he passed. Through all the smoke and confusion, they still bore arms. They still stole lives. They still made mistakes.

With each footfall, the air grew colder. They ate up the ground, the glaring white of the frozen tundra beckoning them in the distance. The blinding light and force of the final blasts exploded around them simultaneously as Noveria welcomed them into her frozen arms.

* * *

_ Shepard was staring at the clock. Digital hands clicked slowly around the numberless face. Save a desk and a few necessary appliances, the room was virtually empty. It was the perfect limbo for those who had yet to be judged for their actions. She waited in silence, shifting uncomfortably as she tried to ignore the chafing of her newly-starched dress uniform. She rarely wore the thing. If not for Alliance dress regulation, she wouldn't have owned one. But then she'd have nothing to wear at tribunals such as this._

_ The door opened and Markham stepped in, captain's hat tucked neatly under his arm. She didn't like him in dress, either. He became stranger, more distant. His manner might not have changed, but his countenance seemed so foreign, as though the man behind the tie might be different than the one she'd honored. He took a seat beside her, leaning forward._

_ They sat in silence for some time before Markham found the gall to break it._

_ "Well, Mirez and Yaeger wanted you out with a dishonorable discharge. Hackett and Daniels wanted to give you a medal. The rest of them are trying to figure out what the hell to make of your psych profile."_

_ Shepard leaned back, letting her head rest against the wall while her eyes stuck to the clock. She'd cut her hair since her return from Akuze. It wasn't anything too drastic, just a shorter bob with feather ends. She saw to it back on the Lima just before her arrival in Lowell City. Wary eyes had watched her the entire time, expecting a psychotic display of cleansing while Shepard cut herself bald. Judging by the sea of white faces, they'd expected her to slit her wrists right after. They seemed relieved and confused when she walked away with a sensible new cut. Some looked disappointed at the lack of blood and returned to their morning routines._

_ It made her very aware of the air conditioning, the beck of her neck now exposed to the elements. It was a pleasant feeling._

_ She turned to look at Markham, meeting his eyes for the first time in days. Much to Shepard's relief, he didn't turn away. _

_ "What do you think? Discharged or decorated?"_

_ He turned away, letting his head hit the wall as he leaned back. She could have smiled then. Perhaps, in another life, they might have been friends. Not comrades or shipmates as they were now. Not officer and subordinate, navy and marine, but something far beyond the reaches of rank and procedure._

_ "N7."_

_ Shepard thought she'd heard incorrectly. When Markham turned back to face her, brows raised expectantly, she sat up straight._

_ "I'm not laughing, cap'n," Shepard warned._

_ "And I'm not joking, Shepard," he mocked._

_ Her gaze hardened, weighing his words as she tried to wrap her mind around what was just suggested_

_ "They won't go for it. Special ops doesn't even look at people like me. I went to technical school, Jim. I'm more qualified to build ion cannons than order around an N7 task force."_

_ Markham shook his head. Shepard was mildly amazed that he'd allowed her the informality to this day._

_ "You don't need to be an academy grad to get in. Yeah, the tactical classes help, but they won't make or break you. You've got the sand and a damn fine dossier. With three letters of recommendation, you'll-"_

_ "Three? What, you're going to make up two more captains and get grounded for fraud?"Shepard scoffed._

_ "If you'd shut up long enough for me to finish my damn thought…" Markham grumbled a mild warning._

_ Shepard pursed her lips, tugging at her collar._

_ "Aye, aye cap'n."_

_ "… You would have learned that you've already got three references."_

_ Shepard's face darkened in confusion, "I don't-"_

_ "Admiral Hackett and Daniels agreed to write testimonials. Hackett and I will go on record as your official referrals."_

_ Shepard had met Daniels before while serving on the Lima. Markham worked closely with him during their tour of the Eagle Nebula and Shepard was a reoccurring character in his reports. She was curious about what the admiral could possibly say on her behalf, but Markham seemed hopeful. Hackett on the other hand was a more elusive figure. Their dealings with him had been limited, but Markham had alluded to a more rich history between them. Perhaps this man had heard far more than Shepard was led to believe. Whatever he knew, it was enough to earn his backing._

_ "The rest of the board?" Shepard asked tentatively._

_ "To be certified, you're required to leave the fleet until you achieve the rank of N7 or drop out. That was good enough for them, apparently. Everybody wins." _

_ Markham stood up and Shepard mirrored him, reaching up in a mechanical salute while the realization of it all took its sweet time settling in._

_ "You're alive, Shepard, and you're going to keep livin' whether you like it or not," Markham scolded softly, stunning Shepard with a sudden display of uncharacteristic warmth._

_ "Captain, I-"_

_ "I've been over your report on Akuze a dozen times. I looked for lapses in judgment, mistakes… I tried so goddamn hard to make sense of what happened down there and I can't blame anything other than fuckin' luck. You made the same calls I would've… You did everything in your power to keep those people alive. It's gnaws at you- I know it does, when you can't justify something that should have gone right goes so wrong…"_

_ "I shouldn't be standing here," Shepard stammered, unable to find truer words to replace them._

_ Markham's face hardened._

_ "The fact that you _are_ is proof enough that you deserve to be here. Don't you _ever_ say otherwise in front of me, or anyone else for that matter. Don't give them the fuckin' satisfaction. Don't cheapen what you've done."_

'What I've done…"

_ She had opted for seclusion. She had sought anonymity among the men and woman she was assigned to command. She had succumbed to temptation and become one of them, befriend them and learned how to _know _them. They offered up their trust and committed to their duty. When the tide came in, she was their pillar. When the storm engulfed them, she could not anchor them. No corner of her mind harbored a sense of triumph. She had let too many lives slip through her fingers and regulation would not allow her the punishment of informing the families herself._

_ Markham would not hear her confession. No, he would not accept it. For the first time in her career, Shepard lied to him._

_ "Aye, aye captain."_

_ He nodded and put his cap on, leading Shepard out of the waiting room. She followed him into the lobby, formalities assumed once more as he introduced her to Hackett and reacquainted her with Daniels. It took a few hours to hammer out the details of her fleet transfer as well as the finer points of N7 admittance. She followed the motions, walking through a haze. _

_ Shepard parted ways with the captain several days later, bound for the core worlds to await the verdict from Alliance Special Operations. She would never see Captain James Markham again. _

_

* * *

_

The chaos of their rendezvous had the Normandy's crew in an uproar. A failure in ladar and lapse in communication had left intelligence to somehow conclude that the ground team had been killed in action and that Hanshan security would not confirm or deny the rumor. Joker had spent the day debating whether or not to leave port with Pressley. The executive officer had been unable to sway Joker and the two eventually resorted to name-calling and making bizarre accusation of loyalties. Dr. Chakwas had put out as many fires as she could, quelling the rising hysteria. After retrieving the Mako's replacement thrusters, the Normandy left Hanshan and remained in local orbit until Wrex managed to hail them the night before. The crew managed to keep it together long enough to brave the Noverian blizzards and enter atmo, evacuating Shepard, Garrus and Wrex without further complications.

The trouble now was not with the terse silence hanging between Joker and Pressley, nor the general disarray that had taken over the cargo bay, but the fact that they had missed their window. Though Peak 15 was constantly battered by snow storms, the blizzards varied in strength and determined the passage from Hanshan to the mountain. The Normandy managed to reach a high enough altitude before the brunt of the storm hit, but they were now stuck in space for the next eight hours until the next projected storm break. Shepard was struggling to shake away the guilty brought on by their delay, among other things.

Their arrival had been one of the more raucous ones. Shepard just narrowly avoided Dr. Chakwas up in the CIC and was still evading her hawk-like gaze. Most of the staff had crowded the airlock, awaiting them with bated breath. Garrus had been noticeably moved by the reception as Shepard watched the engineers all take their turn slapping him on the back, nearly knocking his scanner out of place. She had not, however, been able to avoid the meeting with Joker and Pressley, who had been wrestling with issues of their own while in orbit. Once they reluctantly agreed to hold their position in protected space, they dispersed. Shepard retreated to the crew's quarters, tending to her wounds in private. No part of her looked forward to enduring Dr. Chakwas' ministrations. Though the doctor had sagely advice to impart and a usually soothing, if not dry, bedside manner, Shepard was not looking for solace.

A fire still burned blue deep in her heart. Someone as investigative as Chakwas was bound to start digging and Shepard didn't want to be responsible for whatever happened when the truth came out.

The darkness of the locker hall was enough. She'd left the lights off, satisfied with the dim emergency paneling that lined the floor, guiding her with a soft glow to the nearest exit.

Shepard sat on the bench between two rows of lockers, hunched forward with her elbows braced on her knees. Her dog tags dangled just below her chest, but her hair obscured the words imprinted on them. She left her hardsuit on the floor, but still wore most of the insulation. Her legs remained tightly padded, but she had exchanged the spandex shirt for an ash gray tank top. There was a trail of diverse bruises leading down her back, a nebulous collection of blue splotches clouding her right shoulder. The split lip no longer bled, but her chest ached. She dare not examine herself further for fear of what she might find under her shirt. A dull pain reminded her of even more damage to her ribs. Shepard would not be an honored guest in the infirmary any time soon. She could only imagine what the doctor would do if she marched in there, stripped down and revealed her most recent battle scars. There would be flames. Hellfire bursting from a vengeful syringe.

Or the good doctor would find a way to incarcerate the commander in a tight plastic bubble.

"Shepard…?"

She closed her eyes as his voice danced on the tile and across her skin.

"Garrus…" Shepard spoke softly. She could hear him at the end of the hallway, but couldn't look up. For some reason, her neck didn't work. His talons clicked slowly across the floor.

"Got a minute?" He was casual.

Unusually casual. Her eyes wandered and she caught him, dressed down. There were no glowing lights. No onboard chips or omni tools. It was just Garrus.

"Depends."

He stopped and she let her eyes roll up, settling on him. His voice may have conveyed ease, but his body was wrought with tension. The turian had folded his arms over his chest; a gesture she knew him well for but had never understood. His insecurity was still novel to her and she found it reassuring. Even the awkwardness that plagued him calmed her.

"I'm just… going to speak freely then. Maybe if I don't give you a chance to stop me, then you won't right? You've asked me time and time again about where I come from and why I… _do _what I do. You've gone so far as to ask about how I feel. I know… I know I'm not an exception. Hell, I've seen you sneaking in a heart to heart with Wrex. It's… definitely not a venture I would pursue, but _you _do… And I never understood before… Maybe I still don't. But you asked me once what I felt about all this… about my father and C-sec…I told you the truth."

Shepard's better judgment urged her to interrupt him, to stop him before he reached the inevitable conclusion. But the part of Shepard that still valued empathy allowed him to finish.

"… So I'm asking the same of you. Are you…" Garrus balked.

"See, I can't even get the question out because I _know_ the answer. Asking it would just be patronizing," he chastised himself.

Shepard stood up, suddenly overcome with the urge to move. At first she stood there, awkward and without purpose. Garrus seemed to falter, but she could see the dawning in his eyes. They practically glowed, even in the lowlight.

They stood apart, separated by a bench bolted to the floor. It may as well have been a steel wall.

"No way in _hell_ are you 'okay,'" his voice was soft, but deceptive. She could hear much more behind the words. Not even the flanging hid the anger he was struggling to tame.

Shepard took a sharp step back and collided with the locker. She hissed, rubbing the back of her head.

"It's not your problem, Garrus," she growled.

"Bullshit, Shepard. You weren't the only one getting ready to die down there," he barked.

She'd had enough and turned to leave, but Garrus was suddenly there, clearing the bench effortlessly as he trapped her between his arms, hands braced on the locker as she was forced to look at him.

The gesture was aggressive, but his tone was still soft, pleading. Her first reaction was to swing at him, pummel him until he fell to the floor. It was a bold, perhaps stupid move that might have cost him more had she not felt so utterly stunned by his figure looming above her, his heart so painfully close.

"You can't-" Garrus began.

There was nothing left to reason with. Every fiber had been revealed. Each intricate piece

shown for its insignificance, worthless without the grand design. This was no tunnel aimed towards a fabled light. This was a spiral downward. This was staring into the eyes of madness.

Shepard snapped.

"I can and I _will!_ Everything! All of it! I'll do it all! I know, I _know _how bad I fucked up, ok? We lost a lot of goddamn time, but we'll get it done! I'll drive the fucking thing by myself to Peak 15 if I have to. That's how this is supposed to go, right? I come up with the plan, get you in and out alive and you go back home while I go where? To find more Saren's? To keep going and _going _until there's no '_go_' left in me? What do you want from me, Garrus? What could you _possibly_ want that you don't already have?"

He grasped her shoulders, wrenching a cry from her lips as his talons pressed into fresh bruises. Garrus pulled his hands away quickly for fear of breaking her further.

"I don't know…" he whispered, pulling her towards him, talons splayed gently around her waist.

"Just not _this,_" he let a finger just barely graze the split in her lip and down her heavily bruised shoulder. She had been prepared to spit obscenities and indignations. She had years of selfish demands pent up within her, quieted by duty and training. Shepard's filter had come away and there was nothing left to tell her of right and wrong. Everything was worthy saying and no apologies were necessary. But she had imagined another moment for this. The words she had longed to say for were wrong. Not here. Not Garrus.

For once in her life, she was ready to speak, and now she could not say the very words that might have set her free. There was only need.

"Please, Garrus_,_" she shook against him, resting her forehead against his chest. She could feel his hands moving across her back now, careful and insistent all at once.

He was nuzzling her, hot puffs of breath disappearing into her hair. Garrus sat down on the bench, pulling Shepard with him. She shuffled her feet, bending her knees until she was able to rest, suddenly finding herself sitting squarely in his lap, hands pressed against the hardness of his chest. She was outright straddling him, which was made altogether more awkward by the fact that she was _staring _right at him, their faces mere inches apart. His eyes locked with her own, wide and green to his piercing blue.

There was no need for language anymore as the current swept her away. Sense and certainty screamed their protests, but she was swaying to a stronger pulse. His touch chased away the cold and kept the doubt at bay, sealing the cracks and flaws as his talons slowly ventured underneath the light cotton of her shirt, finding unprotected skin.

"Garrus," she hissed.

"Tell me it's ok," he urged against her neck, the sensation pulsing down her spine.

She gasped, "It's really, _really_ ok."

She had no idea what she was doing. She had no idea what _he _was doing. All at once, that heat had become passion rather than rage. They touched and nothing mattered but the moment. His talons were racing across her skin, eager but tentative at once, too cautious to venture into softer territories. He would even let himself stray from her stomach. But she was no better. She could only feel him through the fabric of his clothes, tracing the hard plating of his chest. Had she known where to look for a zipper or button or _something,_ she would have acted on it. This was all unknown. Never once had it crossed her mind that this was a turian, but rather she'd rationalized the instant with an assurance of common sense. Each would find their place.

But Shepard didn't know where she was going or why she had suddenly found that ravishing her squad mate was perfectly acceptable. Reason was regaining control and Shepard dreaded it. She was panting now, frustration and need mingling and exhausting her control. She reached for his face and guided him towards her. There was such a raw need in his eyes, a lust blatant to both species.

She kissed him, lips pressed to his mouth in a desperate attempt to convey everything she was feeling through that single point of contact. Shepard knew he couldn't return it, but some part of her hoped that the gesture alone was enough. She didn't even know how she could continue given the fact that he simply couldn't reciprocate the same way, but she couldn't stop. It was enough for her simply to show him what it meant, even if could not do the same. He was still at first, but the intention translated perfectly as his talons were suddenly in her hair, urging her to stay.

Shepard arched back as she felt his talons rising, venturing up her abdomen until they found her left breast. His hand was uncertain, but unrelenting, palming her gently as he gingerly learned his way around the softness of her. He was incredibly careful and the touch was maddening, driving her closer to an edge she couldn't see. Garrus seemed to be fascinated by her shape, palming her nipple until she could take no more. Her heart fell when she finally forced herself to break away, gasping for air. His hand slipped out from under her shirt at her command, finding a firm grip on her thigh. Garrus was panting with her and they clutched each other as they relearned how to breathe.

"Holy _shit…"_ Shepard gasped, pressing her cheek to his shoulder.

"Glad to hear it," Garrus laughed low in his throat, chest rumbling against her. It was peaceful here, but that nagging voice was ordering her to move. She refused.

"So do we…?" she stammered.

"I have no idea… But we need to go somewhere else. You know… _not _here," he looked up, eyeing the doorway, "I'm sorry… I should probably get you back to your room."

Shepard pressed a palm to her face, turning against him.

"What's wrong with here?" A child's stubbornness overcame her.

"Aside from the obvious?"

He'd asked a perfectly good question. He'd raised an interesting point as well, but the moment for action had long passed. Shepard had grown far too comfortable cradled there in his lap. She felt as though she had melted into him, that an unforgiving cold might overcome her if she dared to peel away. This was not a private place and yes, there would be dangers untold if they remained. She couldn't venture away from his warmth. Garrus was still speaking, but she could no longer discern the words. Sound blended together, an incoherent lullaby urging her to lay her worries to rest and come away with the night.

The turian was moving beneath, but Shepard could not participate. She was breathing again, unlabored. She could see beyond the chaos of the past few hours and into a horizon far, far away. She closed her eyes and dreamed of the Lima shooting past a distant star, locked in Garrus' arms.


	15. Chapter 15

_Imagine  
What moments those last hours hold  
Things we missed that might have changed our lives_

_

* * *

_

Natural, healthy sleep was a rarity. Cat naps were more realistic- twenty minute spans of blackness. Even more commonplace was a coma or unconsciousness brought on by a sound beating. To finally attain peace unthreatened by disquieting dreams was a damn fine accomplishment. The mind works its wonders during the REM cycles, laying the ego's cards upon the table while subconscious attempts to read them. It's a dizzying mechanism resulting more often in confusion than understanding. The worries of the world turn to whimsy and evolve in the mind's eye as tiny synapses fire off and chemistry comes into play. What man comes to understand as his true motivation becomes marred or muddled after a night of reconciliation with the dream world. Good intentions peel away and reveal the selfishness balled tightly within. Petty man relishes dreams of wealth and satisfaction with no regard for human life or the needs of others. Shepard clutches dreams of silence, watching ships drifting through the vacuum from safe within her cloister, kept company by a select few. James Markham was a frequent visitor, as was the Keenan McDowell of days long passed. Every once and a while, her mother and father joined her in space. Their faces were never certain, though. Features changed as they stood around her, never the same person. Now it was Garrus standing at her side, quiet and certain as they watched the stars flicker and die.

It took her a few moments to sift through the muddled dreams as she breached through the veil of sleep. She recognized the ceiling first, then the stiff sheets beneath her. This was _her _room, not the crew locker. She felt a pang of remorse, wishing with all her heart that she could return to that moment of careless abandon rather than dwell on the realization of what she'd done. It was fraternization, regardless of how right it seemed at the time. It was real. She tried to justify her lust, blaming it on the sudden onset of irrational anger. Shepard was still deeply affected by that shared moment of affection. Her fury abated and she was left without a buffer, experiencing in full the weight of her own attachment to Garrus. Garrus, the turian- the alien made of spikes and plates and discomfited, yet endearing candor. It was evident to the vast majority of the Normandy that Shepard identified more with their non-human recruits than she did with the Alliance officers. Chakwas was a solid ally, as was Ashley, but their companionship still didn't quite compare to the sense of homecoming when she was reunited with krogan, quarian, and turian. Even, on occasion, asari.

She could have laid there for hours, lost in those thoughts, but she was remembering very quickly what exactly had transpired in those moments before she surrendered to sleep. Shepard sat up, exhaling sharply as the not-quite-forgotten pain shot through her battered limbs. Garrus was facing her desk, busy with something she couldn't quite make out. He turned his head slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse of her out of the corner of his gleaming eye.

"Do humans only sleep in ten minute increments? Or is this something unique to you?" Garrus pivoted to her, leaving Shepard a window into his work space. She snorted and pushed a curtain of hair out of her eyes, trying to make out the writing on the plastic casings he'd left askew on her desk.

"Why are we in my room?" Shepard muttered, devoid of an apology for changing the subject without any sort of segue. She didn't remember walking here on her own, either. Her last memories were of collapsing into his arms after a heated exchange. Logic dictated that the relocation was Garrus' doing.

The turian in question shifted his weight to rest against her desk, leaning as he rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "Don't give me that look; makes me feel like I've done something wrong. You got here on your own- barely."

Oh yes, there was more to it. There had been a brief dream of peeling off insulation and stumbling through the mess, passing by a dumbfounded cluster of crewmen on downtime with an uncomfortable turian at her heels, followed by a nose dive into her pillow.

'_So… not a dream.'_

Shepard's lips quirked in a crooked grin, surprised at how quickly her cheeks flushed. Garrus prepared to speak, but tilted his head back as he ran an uncertain hand down the plates of his face.

"I used to be good at talking."

Shepard smirked lazily. "I have that effect on people. I think it's my awesomeness. Lesser men would be crying right now, you know- because of the awesome. "

Garrus made a short, guttural sound in his throat that may have been a laugh. He seemed slightly more relaxed and didn't have the same stiffness about him. Shepard wasn't sure if he was conscious of it.

He cocked his head. "As much as I want to believe that, I don't. Love the false bravado, by the way."

"Laugh it up. Sarcasm looks great on you, too. Feel good about yourself?"

"Most of the time. It really depends on what I'm wearing."

"You vain little bitch."

"Are we done stalling?"

"Ah- no." Shepard stammered as her eyes were inexplicably drawn back to Garrus' gaze, trapped. His face was stiff and careful, but could feel the intent radiating from him. Garrus Vakarian was not going to let her walk away from this. She sighed heavily, but her muscles tensed. Part of her missed the obliging, submissive Garrus. That one didn't make her doubt herself.

What _happened_? What came over her barely an hour ago? Shepard admitted to possessing an indescribable fondness for the turian, but she would have never indulged in anything so rampantly carnal. Their exchange spiraled into something suddenly physical. Shepard was a novice in these matters. Her methods of initiation ranged from awkward flirtations to fumbling and muttered apologies. This never led to sex. She couldn't even _remember_ the first and last time she'd been felt up by anything- let alone another human being, but a turian? What was worse? Her hasty introduction to xenophilia? Or that this had all transpired with Garrus? She dared to call him a friend once, and that was no small thing. They were a tandem force in the field, anticipating each other with excellent intuition. She trusted him with her life and she valued his loyalty above so many things. There were very few people who had survived her company long enough to enter the trust circle. She could count them on half a hand.

Yet having him so close to her, prodding her to open up and talk to him for once. It was true what he'd said down in the darkness of the locker room. She'd spent so much time listening that she'd forgotten how to speak.

Now she was fearful of her own thoughts. She wanted his warmth again and she grasped the edge of the bed tightly, unable to look at him as she spoke. She absolutely _despised _this sensation.

"What is it about you that makes me feel so goddamn small?"

"Probably the height difference, but I get the feeling that's not quite what you meant." There was still soft humor in his voice, but his tone was far gentler than she'd ever heard before. It made her quake and she struggled to process this sense of affection coming off him. That was something she'd never properly learned to process. It just didn't compute.

Shepard wasn't ready to give up. The cold and distant part of her was clawing to get away, urging her to dismiss him and avoid the problem altogether. The other part of her, this newly risen seeker of physical contact and guardian of her emotions, was currently stronger and far more insistent on opening itself up to him.

'_Step one: stop staring at the carpet.'_

"I… don't know how to do this, Garrus."

The words came out pitifully small and she hadn't meant to look at him like that. Whatever he saw, it unnerved him. He was pacing.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to… Ah, I didn't want to make this harder. I know you have a lot of things on your mind and this really isn't…We don't have to talk about this right now… Should I go? I should go."

He half-turned to leave, as though there were two pilots steering his body, each with opposite orders. One was quite set on staying.

"Wait!" Her voice hitched, betraying her. She winced in embarrassment and tried to pave over her mess.

"It's okay. This is… this is all me."

It was enough to stop him, thankfully. Garrus looked downright ashamed, though, and Shepard's face fell. She'd conveyed this all wrong. Still, she'd managed to anchor him back down to his seat on her desk.

"Yeah… used to be a lot better at this, and I don't think it's you, Shepard. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. I'm not much of a wordsmith, either." She tried to smile as best she could, wanting nothing more than to comfort him, to build him back up when he seemed to be crumbling so quickly. This wasn't Garrus.

"No, not for that. For lying. For the fiasco on Hanshan and even when you woke up after Therum- white lies or not, they were all wrong. It's against the code… the one I've done such a shitty job of trying to live by. I could have stopped this."

Shepard frowned, "Garrus, you couldn't have changed what happened down there. The Second Strike was always goings to be bad news and we'd prepped for them. Knowing that I was the most hated Spectre on Noveria wouldn't have fixed much. "

'_McDowell would still be dead at the end of the day.' _

Her own thoughts were straying and she looked away, quickly forcing herself to put the mental snapshots of the bloodied man and gray matter out of her mind. They'd resurface again in time. They always did.

"I don't believe that, Shepard, as much as I'd like to. Hell, I don't know what I believe anymore. I thought things were bad enough at C-Sec beneath all of the bureaucracy, but out here… it's the same game with a different name. Sometimes, I think I'm about to cross over to the dark side, take the low road, thinking the justice down there's just as good as the Council's. Then I look at you…"

He was walking towards her. Slowly. One step at a time. She turned her head back to him, eyes drifting upwards to meet his gaze.

"…and I think 'she's got it together. She knows right and wrong. We've seen so much fucked up shit out here at the edge of nothing and she's still whole.' Even when she's bashing heads in."

Shepard made a sound in her throat; a scoff of disbelief. She'd proven him wrong hours ago as she blundered through the caverns of Noveria, wreaking blind havoc with Garrus in tow. She fell apart in front of him on the floor of their cell, deep in the bowels of the Second Strike. Then and there, she felt like the least put-together person in the world; much less a Spectre.

Not even a soldier.

He was suddenly crouching down in front of her. Her eyes widened as they came face to face, his talons snaking out to curl under her chin and forcing her to look at him. Brazen Garrus was back. It seemed that every time she lost a shred of confidence, he grew bolder, swooping down to tend to her wounds.

"So forgive me if I lose myself when I see doubt written all over your face."

"You have to have some kind of moral standard, Garrus. Even if it's skewed a little. If you lose it, well… that's when things turn gray. _That's_ when you get into trouble." The words came with ease, as though they'd been well-rehearsed. She believed it, but found it harder to actualize than she wanted to admit to Garrus. Besides, she was distracted enough by this sudden display of insight.

"Since when did you become such an expert on human emotion?" She kept his gaze as the talons fell away. She gestured for him to sit next to her on the bed, shivering as she found herself missing his touch.

His manner was gradually changing. Shepard could feel him relaxing, noting the self-assurance that compelled him to touch her when he would have otherwise left her be, cordially distant. "Expert? Hardly. Humans are still very much a mystery to me. You, though… I think I understand."

They let silence come over the room as the conversation naturally lulled. Shepard let his words settle and she assumed he was doing the same. They were soldiers, conditioned for combat and tested by countless firefights. He understood the burden of sifting through right and wrong. They each clutched their moral compasses, never quite certain which way was north.

This seemed so backwards. She'd always been the one to instill confidence and boost morale. Never did she imagine that Garrus would be the one to find her in her quarters and spoon feed her assurance. It was a strange feeling that she knew in essence was wrong, but it felt _right_. Something about him was just right. His code, his rules, his picture-perfect, personalized idea of justice was so alluring. So different than what the Alliance had taught her. It was an ideal she'd adopted since their meeting.

There was one more step she had to take. They could go no further until Shepard learned to open the floodgates. No matter the consequences. She'd felt this lump in her throat before, years ago- in a slant-shuttered office on a dusty red planet.

"Keenan McDowell was a lieutenant when I met him. He was also an agent for the Second Strike, but I didn't know that then; this was back when the Alliance was still shipping off green soldiers to mining colonies when they weren't needed. He re-conditioned me on Cafrim and got me my first transfer to the Lima, into active duty."

Garrus remained very still, staring straight ahead.

"I wouldn't have survived on Akuze if it wasn't for him. He taught me how to stay alive. I paid him back by killing him."

Cold, hard, backwater justice.

"… And I don't know how I atone for that, or if that's even possible. The man I thought I knew wasn't real. The man I met yesterday was the one who convinced me I was worth something and he was fucking nuts."

In actuality, she had been a roadblock on his way to top. She was an object to be removed, a liability. Not an asset. A curious nuisance.

Shepard caught his mandibles twitching out of the corner of her eye. Agitation emanated from him. She could sense that much. Whether or not he shared her doubts was still a mystery.

"You were right. I couldn't even consider it then, but you were right. About revenge. You've earned an 'I told you so.'"

Garrus seemed to sink further into himself.

"Keep it; I don't want it. I was hoping I'd be eating my words by now." He heaved a heavy sigh. "I learned plenty of lessons in my life from people I didn't look up to. I learned some invaluable things from bastards and thieves. It doesn't matter how you learn, so long as you do. Regardless of how wrong your teacher was or how much I would have liked to have taken a shot at him or… ten. To the face."

She saw him flex his talons, but he refused to clench a fist as he glowered beside her, making little effort to hide his disdain. Her mouth kept moving. Shepard couldn't stop now. A human man would have anticipated tears. Her stoicism may have come off as shocking, but the turian had come to accept this collected response as standard. Garrus didn't coddle and no words could express how much she appreciated that about him right then.

"How am I any better?"

Garrus shot up without warning and Shepard followed him reflexively, startled by his sudden movement. He spun to face her, but said nothing. His eyes were alight with anger, boring into her. She immediately regretted her word choice.

She was even more taken aback when the flash of anger subsided as quickly as it appeared. His manner softened and he relaxed his shoulders.

"There was a turian many, many years ago who served in the fleet. Called him a 'combat philosopher,' if you believe a turian could be such a thing. He said, 'measure a man not by the breadth of his shadow, but by the weight of his heart.'"

She flexed her bare hands at her sides as her translator tried to apply the proper meaning to his words. The core of it seemed lost on her and a much simpler human phrase came to mind.

"Like 'don't judge a book-?'"

"No, not quite so simple," he waved the mistaken meaning away, "A man may do great things and kill many enemies, but that's not what he is."

Shepard's eyes searched his, waiting.

"His true worth comes from what he feels in the wake of his actions. An action is meaningless unless he understands its repercussions and takes a piece of it with him; remorse, regret, guilt. You're better, Shepard, because you mourn him."

Her skin prickled. Shepard didn't want to believe him, but he had appealed to logic and reasoning. As much as she would have liked to keep punishing herself, she couldn't. Garrus wasn't going to let her anymore.

"This… isn't originally what I meant to talk about, but you brought this on yourself. I can't have you walking out that door thinking that this bastard changed who you are," he rubbed the back of his neck.

"I know."

"Are you just saying that to shut me up, or do you honestly believe this?"

She nodded, "I've seen the light."

'_And I'm pretty sure that I'll lose my nerve unless we change the damn subject like… now-ish.'_

Shepard wanted to fidget and it took every ounce of self-control she had for her to keep her palms at her sides. "I also think that we should probably move on and figure out what happened back there. Before we got… sidetracked."

She expected another visit from flighty Garrus, but he never arrived. Perhaps the residual anger left over from his last outburst had strengthened him a little. This was by no means an easy matter to discuss for either of them, especially as she stood there in spandex leggings and the same not-so-modest tank top, feeling very over-exposed.

"I was hoping that would be obvious," Garrus said softly, eyes set upon her fragile frame.

Shepard's focus shifted from him to the mess he'd made on her desk, suddenly reminded of her intention to ask about that.

"What's all that crap up there?" She gestured with a nod.

"Medi-gel. I thought I'd try to convince you to use some of this stuff," he picked up a packet and turned it over in his hand before setting back down, "But now I'm pretty convinced that you'd prefer to keep the scars."

'_They help remind me of what I've done.'_

"They help me intimidate my enemies. Is that a problem?" She was quick to hide the momentary dark cloud with a tight-lipped grin.

He dipped his head down, pale eyes glimmering. "I don't mind them." There was that huskiness in his voice again that sent warm shivers down her spine and chased away all humor. She was suddenly back in the dark with him, feeling his claws trace patterns in her skin while he buried his face in her hair and drove her mad with heat and desire. The low vibration in his throat quivered against her body, singeing her where their skin met. Her fingers raked down his chest again and again until she was panting with need.

Then she was standing with him in the dim lights of her room, tiny beads of perspiration hiding under her fringed bangs as remnants of the vivid memory.

Her fingers were itching to wander.

"Garrus-" her voice cracked and blood rushed to her cheeks, flushing her otherwise pallid face.

_Aw, fuck._

She hadn't meant to back step, but her limbs betrayed her own orders. Each movement occurred in rapid succession. Her lurch set him in motion and the distance between them was suddenly gone as he filled her space. His talons closed around her wrist and drew her in by the arm while grasped him by the cowl as an act of balance and demand for his closeness.

Shepard was neither grace nor elegance. Her actions were spurred on by raw need and an earnest lust and Garrus seemed equally enthusiastic and untrained. She was drawn to his neck, breathing hotly against the exposed flesh beneath his mandible. Each brush of lips tore from him a rumbling sound; a hybrid between a growl and purr that excited her beyond all rational belief. His free hand was pushing the straps of her tank top down past her shoulders while he bowed over her, the hard edges of his mouth grazing sun-spared flesh. Shepard shifted her weight, but was unprepared for the heaviness of him and she toppled back into the bed, dragging him with her in an uncoordinated display of flying limbs.

The jolt was hard enough to bring her senses to the surface. She had to call time out before they wound up killing each other with inexperience.

"I don't want to be _that_ guy, but… what are we doing?"

Garrus was reluctant to cease his ministrations, but he seemed to be as aware of their predicament as she was. He sat up on his knees while she panted beneath him, hair strewn across her face, stark against her pallor. His blue eyes were still glistening against the gray palette of his plates.

"Well, Iwas seducing you. I think," humor ebbed away, "I'm sorry. I don't want to hurt you… and that's probably what will happen after all this. I just-"

"Garrus," she said sternly, placing a hand on his thigh as she looked up at him, "I care about you. That's all I know. Everything else… "

"… we'll just have to learn," he shifted himself so he could lay beside her. He took her hand once more and led it gently to the right side of his face, holding her palm to the hinge of his mandible. The feel of it beneath her fingertips wasn't like anything she'd felt before.

Hell, nothing about this was familiar. She'd only heard of vids featuring cross-species couples and had never dared to confirm the rumors. Shepard had her own theories on the logistics, but it was hardly a dilemma that occupied her free time. Now she wished she's given into curiosity just once… just enough to know what to do.

"Whatever happens," she muttered as she found herself at the flesh of his neck once more, damning her own ignorance as she began again. "…just let it be ours."

* * *

_She liked his style. He was a crack shot and quick-thinker. Shepard had known most C-Sec agents to be rigid, by the book, and adequate at best. But damn, the turian had a flair about him. He struck with such intensity that every kill seemed like a personal vendetta fulfilled. Yet after the smoke settled, he was all business and one-liners. He was the very definition of pro. The day he stepped onto the Normandy as a crew member was the moment she believed that she could build something against Saren. He wasn't the last, either, but a precursor for the alliances to come. Tali and Wrex weren't far behind. Each new colorful addition bolstered her resolve and made plans and strategies come to life in her mind. There were new possibilities to explore, new knowledge bases to search. _

_They were accepting of her quiet quirks and social lacking. Garrus was especially eased by her broken metaphors and dry repartee._

_Shepard found him rummaging through a near-empty mess after one of Hackett's assignments. The rest of her team was catching up on much needed rest. The turian, however, seemed to be struggling with finding appropriate rations._

"_Problem, Garrus?" Shepard asked quietly, nursing the cup of coffee steaming in her hand as he turned to face her. Sleep was a luxury far beyond her reach, unlike the rest of her crew. She was content, however, to fill herself to bursting with caffeine and spend an hour cleaning her weapons._

"_Perhaps. Though maybe I should just take it as a hint and start dieting," he cocked his head. _

_Shepard caught the subtle exits of the crewman sitting idly at the table, letting them drift from her peripheral as they fled the scene. Some men were powerless in the face of dry wit._

"_I don't think the Alliance anticipated having many dextro-based life forms on board. Tali knows how to put it away," she took a seat at the now-abandoned table, letting her gaze drift. "I had her put in an order for more supplies at the Citadel. We're en route now."_

"_Thanks, Shepard."_

_She nodded, "I can't having you keeling over while I'm trying to show you what to shoot."_

"_Well, that, but I meant more for… this," he made a vague gesture._

"_For the galley? Don't thank me. I didn't pay for it."_

_Garrus shook his head, "For getting me out of C-Sec and letting me join your hunt for Saren. You have no idea how bad I wanted this."_

_Shepard swallowed a mouthful of coffee and let her tongue wag wildly, "Don't get sentimental on me Garrus. It's all for the mission. You're no exception."_

_She regretted uttering those words immediately. It was intended as a joke; a dry exchange of playful banter that she'd learned to indulge in years ago. It was an acquired taste for many and some never learned to like it. Hearing it become real, it sounded so heavy and… wrong. _

_The turian was busy sifting through one of the lower cabinets. He came away with a black container covered in un-appetizing notations. He didn't seem offended, but then again, she was a novice at deciphering alien expressions. _

"_Of course. But you have to admit, I'm quite a catch," He rumbled. Rumbled? Or was that a laugh? She was certain it was some expression of humor. Had he detected her sarcasm then? It was a bit too late now for her to open up and explain herself. Her apologizes usually fizzled into a pile of stutters._

_Instead, she articulated her most coherent thought. "That's food? Shit, I thought those were batteries."_

"_My favorite," he tucked the contained under his arm, "I'll be in the cargo bay if you need me, Shepard."_

_She nodded her farewell as Garrus entered the lift._

_Pride and awkwardness forbade her to call him back._

_

* * *

_

Now Shepard was screaming his name. Or at least she would have if her voice would obey her. Words came easier before all this. She was too far gone now and simply remembering to breathe was a triumph. They'd taken turns peeling off clothing, leaving them drunk off their own arousal. He'd spent a great deal of time surveying her body, asking questions and gently testing the skin as she encouraged him to explore. Garrus did the same for her, teaching and praising as she traced his shape with her hands. He was fascinated by her chest and seemed pleased by the fact that she appreciated his interest. Shepard was spooned against him, injuries forgotten and back pressed to the hardness of his plated abdomen as he cupped a breast with one hand, the other draped possessively across her hips.

"_Fuck_, Garrus," she hissed as she craned around, urging his head down to her level as she pressed her lips fervently to his mouth, kissing him as she had in the locker room. He'd learned from her and kept the contact, seeming to understand the human gesture though he couldn't return it completely. Their foreheads touched at his insistence and she wondered if that was his own way of matching her fervor. He responded by drawing the draped hand down to her thighs, stroking the skin there.

She gasped as he continued on his search. He'd found something and it was sending relentless waves of electricity through her, pushing her towards an unseen precipice. Garrus growled, refusing to give Shepard a reprieve as he continued with his certain, circular motions. He appeared to be listening to her, tracing her reactions and making careful notes. He was too _damn _good.

"How did you…?" Shepard gasped, barely forming the words.

"You're giving me all the hints I need," he purred into her neck, nipping softly. The hand at her breast disappeared into her hair, letting the short strands slip between his talons. She wasn't surprised by his interest in that feature. Something so uniquely human was bound to capture his attention. But the heat between her legs seemed to be his main focus. She was a writhing mess and her hands would not stop moving. Shepard followed the plated paths and paused where skin began, eliciting a contented noise from him with each new touch.

He in turn traced her scars, playing with the mended flesh while he continued to work her into a state of abandon. She felt the pressure become something bigger and unbearable. Her spine bowed sharply and Garrus was there to hold her at bay with the wandering hand while the other stayed between her legs, coaxing her over the edge.

A gasp of disbelief escaped her lips as everything broke. Whether she was deserving of it or not was beyond relevant as she bucked against him, light exploding before her eyes as he pressed her to him, the sharp edges of his neck digging into her back. Everything came crashing down in slow motion and she rode the tumbling waves with careless abandon. She didn't bother trying to stifle herself either; her motor skills just weren't up to the task. Garrus seemed to be having just as good a time behind her. He'd bit down on her neck, hard enough to leave marks but spare her blood. He was moving along with her to their rhythm and she noticed the stiff pressure against her back as the final waves subsided.

He collapsed onto her with a grunt, releasing her flesh and burying his face in her hair. Sweat dripped down her cheeks as she lay there, panting. Shepard shifted to face him, letting a curious hand wander down to where the stiffness resided, only to find that the mysterious pressure had become quite soft.

She rolled her eyes up to his, "Did you…?"

"You have _no_ idea how unbelievable you looked. I… couldn't help myself," he hid his face at her collarbone and inhaled deeply. Her lips quirked in a smile as she placed a kiss at the crest of his fringe, tracing the plates with her fingers. He began to purr again.

Shepard panted softly as they gradually recovered. They'd come to a mutual agreement beforehand, hoping to lay some sort of groundwork before they got too carried away. They had absolutely no knowledge of each others' inner workings and opted to find other means to enjoy each others' company. This would simply have to be an ongoing effort between the two of them. There was quite a bit of research to be done before things could escalate. For now, this would do fine.

While Shepard was slightly disappointed that she'd been deprived the opportunity to satisfy him, she was reassured by the knowledge that he'd enjoyed himself. They lay in a tangled heap of limbs, her own unprotected flesh pressed against jutting plates and ridges. Yet despite it all, she just couldn't care. Feeling his breath against her skin as she stroked his fringe took her mind off everything else.

"You think you can still respect me after seeing me naked?" Shepard smirked.

Garrus tilted her head back, dipping his head down to trace the underside of her jaw with his mouth. "I don't think respect is the issue here," the soft vibrations of his voice sending shivers throughout her body as he stared up at her through half-lidded eyes.

"So you're saying we have an issue?" Her eyes fluttered shut as she felt him move across her.

"It's more of a question. About what this means. Where do we go from here?"

That sobered her a little. He slid up to meet her eyes and they watched each other from sometime. He didn't prompt her for the l-word and she was relieved by it. Shepard wasn't even sure of its definition anymore and Garrus didn't search it from her. Perhaps it did play a part in this equation, but she didn't recognize it. Not here, not now while they were hours away from a drop and still hell bent on stopping the AWOL Spectre. Even now, she should have felt guilty for this respite. Yet she had to know what this was. There was mutual attraction and some other indefinable force between them, drawing them together. To label it, though, would be premature. They simply had to accommodate what they had.

"We've got to keep it quiet, for the crew's sake. There's still… a lot to be done. And we've got that asari matriarch to take out in the morning."

Garrus nodded after a moment and Shepard could almost hear each individual gear turning in his head. He didn't seem offended by the suggestion.

"And then what?"

Shepard hesitated, then smiled softly. "We'll figure it out. If we're still alive."

"Fair enough," Garrus muttered as he drew Shepard gingerly into him, twining his talons through her fingers in a skillful display of cross-species hand holding. Shepard molded to him, laying her head against his exposed bicep as they shifted their limbs to fit, like long lost pieces of a forgotten puzzle. They sank into one another and Shepard felt like she might actually sleep that night as Garrus pressed his mandible to the top of her head. She felt him go limp after a minute or so while her gaze drifted across the dimly lit room, from the abandoned clothing on the floor to the soft glow of the bedside alarm. When her eyelids grew heavy, she didn't fight the urge to relax. Quiet thoughts followed her to the edges of sleep.

She wanted very much to live.

* * *

_I started writing this when I was 20. I was a sophomore in college and I had no idea what the hell I was doing. I just wanted to write something about Mass Effect. Now, several years and one bachelors degree later, I'm trying to salvage what I started and make it into something cohesive. Well, it's not quite there. I realized as soon as I beat Mass Effect 2 that this story would never work with canon. Even before then, chances of that were slim._

_Now, we're done. Three drafts later, I have a version I think I'm satisfied with. I will never write without a beta again. I edited… a ton. Still missed things, I'm sure. I always do. I haven't written romance in so long. The sexy bits were incredibly difficult to write. Half the time, I was too embarrassed to type them up. Yeah, I'm ashamed of myself. No balls at all. Needless to say, this chapter probably warrants an M rating._

_Look what's happened over these years. We got our sequel, got our Garrus romance, and got our… movie deal? Well, I'm not happy about it, but that's just me. I'm wary of beloved video games getting thrown into the movie grinder. This place has also proved to me that good writers do exist here and they love Shepard/Garrus hotness. I'm overwhelmed by all these wonderful new things I have to read._

_This story has actually been the one thing standing in the way of my new Mass Effect project. I don't want to give away too many details, but I hope you'll keep checking back with me for updates. All original characters, no Shepard recycling. _

_My last request**: Review**? What did you think? Let down? Fulfilled? Ragequit?_

_I hope you enjoyed it. I loved your feedback and I will always appreciate those of you who returned for more chapters. Even you newbies, I heart you too. Sorry for the sillyness in chapter 15. I was starting to crack. Thank you, BioWare, for giving me yet another game to play when I should be studying. One of these days, I'll get you to hire me._

_I'm sure I've left stuff out. Ah well. _

_I'll be here if you need me._


End file.
